


You know he dies at the end, right?

by Polyhexian



Series: Scarborough Fair Continuity [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Functionist Universe, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mutual Pining, POV Third Person, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Tragedy, Yearning, also canon compliant to scarborough fair lol, functionist universe related warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:22:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25084603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: In a world without a war, Tailgate is discovered beneath the Mitteous Plateau by a member of the Anti-Vocationist's League and uses his quick wits and ability to lie on his feet to work undercover as a spy against the government. One day he's offered what he knows will be his final assignment: spying in The Cog on the Functionist Council directly.In a world without a war, Whirl moves from the Senate's employ to the Functionist Council's, the poster-child for the success of ritual Empurata. Whirl is the bodyguard to Four-of-Twelve, but he's less of a fan of the Council than he lets on.Together, Whirl and Tailgate smuggle out information that saves countless lives- but they know there's no way they can save their own.
Relationships: Anode & Whirl (Transformers), Background Rewind/Dominus Ambus, Rewind & Tailgate (Transformers), Tailgate/Whirl (Transformers)
Series: Scarborough Fair Continuity [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032567
Comments: 86
Kudos: 66
Collections: IDW1 Canon-compliant headcanons





	1. First Circle: Limbo

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Scarborough Fair](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24797821) by [Polyhexian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian). 



> HELLO and welcome to [blows kazoo] my 100th Transformers fanfiction!!!! Let's make it a really good one folks. I'm hype about this. If you're familiar with my catalogue of work, you know I write a lot of hurt/comfort fics with a really strong emphasis on the hurt part. I love a good tragedy. I love to write some angst. But I've never full engaged a Tragedy. So today, my friend, we are going to enjoy ourselves A Tragedy.
> 
> This fanfic is canon compliant with my other story, Scarborough Fair. You don't need to read that to read this at all, but if you did, then you noticed some teasers in it, I'm sure. 
> 
> Theme song for this fanfic is Utada Hikaru's fantastic "Sakura Nagashi."

Tailgate dug his servos into the porous stone ground, body shaking with the effort it took to heave himself even another inch further forward. Every strut in his chassis screamed and pleaded with him to give up, begged for him to just end his suffering already, to accept his fate, lay down, and die.

He mashed his faceplate into the dirt, digging his chin into the stone to earn himself another millimetre. Everything counted. He needed to get to the cart he'd brought with him, full of energon, he needed to blow it and get help if he wanted to survive, and he very much wanted to survive. This wasn't how he wanted to die, alone in the dark, completely forgotten, never memorable enough to remember to forget. He wasn't ready to die. Not yet. Not like this. 

He was going to see the world. He was going to do something with his life. He was going to leave his footprint on the world and make sure it _knew_ he had lived in it. Tailgate was not going to die here in this hole without having participated in the world he'd been forged into. He was going to _matter._ He wouldn't die.

He lost his fight with consciousness and flickered offline again, and the next time he came back into himself, he was no longer crawling across the ground in a cave beneath the Mitteous Plateau. 

* * *

"Hey, hey, alright then, come on, let me see that visor light up, yeah?" 

The voice sounded far away, muffled, unfamiliar, as if through water. Tailgate rebooted his audials twice before he processed the request and force-started his optical feed, vision flickering online. A stranger was leaning over him, yellow visor casting a too-bright glow into his optics that made him narrow his feed again and pull away uncomfortably.

"There we go! Seems like you're still alive, after all. Impressive."

"Who are you?" Tailgate coughed, fighting his weak vocalizer, speech laced with static and audio breaks, "Where am I?"

"Mm, let's get to that one in just a minute," he squinted at the speaker, some red and white helicopter with a gold visor, "For now let's start with the easy stuff. You're not dying anymore. It was pretty touch and go there for a hot minute, but one transfusion and some top notch repair work later and," they tapped their knuckles on the top of his head, "You're talking again."

"Okay," said Tailgate, weary already, "Um, thank you?" 

"You're welcome," the apparent doctor purred, "You have Cybercrosis, by the way."

" _What?!_ " Tailgate spat. 

"Don't worry!" The doctor chirped, "It's totally treatable when you catch it this early. I mean, you're not going to stop having Cybercrosis, but we can slow it down to a crawl, at least. With any luck, something else will kill you before it ever has the chance! I'm Airshock, by the way." 

Tailgate stared at them, processor whirring, before he pushed himself to his elbows and looked around.

For a moment he thought he was still under the Mitteous Plateau. The room was a cavern, but it was clearly at least a semi-permanent installation, a sketchy medibay set up in a cave. Him and Airshock were alone as far as he could tell, and that worried him most of all.

"What are you going to do with me?" he asked, hesitantly, glancing back toward them. 

" _I'm_ going to make sure you're working tip-top before I let you leave," said Airshock, their thin claws reaching into another table to grab a scanner, "After that, who's to say." The helicopter paused. "Oh! No, we aren't going to torture you or anything, if that's what you meant."

"That's… reassuring."

Airshock trotted back to his side and passed the scanner over him, before tutting and going back to the table to drop it down again and fiddle with their tools.

Tailgate sat up all the way, holding his helm in one hand, vision swimming. He felt remarkably out of it. How long had he been out? 

"What happened to the Ark?" he asked.

Airshock stared at him, visor blinking. "The Ark?" they asked, "You mean The _Ark_ -Ark?

"Yes, The _Ark_ -Ark," Tailgate said, annoyed, "Nova Prime is leaving today." 

Airshock tittered, then laughed, and then went totally quiet. "I am _so_ sorry," they said, "Wow, I really should not be the one telling you this. People are not my thing." 

"What? What are you talking about?" Tailgate stretched his pedes, newly built and strange in feeling for that, moving them to swing over the side of the berth.

"The Ark left Cybertron six million years ago," Airshock told him, "Are you telling me you've been konked out under the Mitteous Plateau all that time?" 

"Six million _what?!_ " Tailgate cried, and toppled over the side of the berth and onto the floor. He hit the ground helm first and groaned, rolling to his side to grab at his head as pain bloomed across his sensornet. 

"Years," said Airshock, who was watching him roll about on the floor with intrigue but not concern, "Six million years." 

"That can't be right," Tailgate gasped, "That's not possible." 

"Is it not possible for like, a specific reason, or just because you don't want it to be?" Airshock queried him as he stood, wobbling, "Be careful. You're still acclimating."

"It's not- it's just not- six _million_ years?!" 

"You've missed a lot," Airshock blinked, "I don't think you're going to like the world you've woken up into, but, again, not really my job." They perked up, looking toward the door, rotors twitching, "Oh, good, someone qualified to deal with people." 

"What?"

The mech that walked through the open doors of the rudimentary medibay was a minibot like him, but something totally unfamiliar. Red and grey with a white faceplate and blue optics, he squinted, trying to parse the stranger's alt-mode despite the lack of kibble.

"The name is Lug. She, backpack, brigadier," she said, quickly, crossing the room. Tailgate quickly filed all that information away as nearly as he could, absorbing it like a sponge. "Sorry I'm late. I didn't leave you alone with Airshock on purpose."

"That's fine," Tailgate answered, and took her hand when she offered it, shaking, "Airshock is… fine." 

"I'll cut to the chase. One of our scouts found you in a cavern under the Mitteous Plateau while mapping the tunnels. Who are you and why were you there?"

Tailgate considered his options. He'd not yet given his name. He could make up any backstory he wanted. He still had no idea where he was or what was going on, though. This was a precarious situation. He regarded her cautiously, as one might a currently sated wild animal.

"My name is Tailgate. I fell through on my way to the launch of the Ark," he said, carefully, "My processor is a little scrambled. I'm having trouble remembering too much else." 

Lug looked at Airshock, who shrugged. 

"Do you know what the Functionist Council is, Tailgate?" Lug asked. Tailgate wracked his brain. He didn't know about this council, but he knew what functionism was.

"After my time, I think," he fielded, "an institution that serves to judge bots by their alt-modes?"

"Vague enough to be correct," Lug said, and he noticed a twitch in her lips toward a smile, "The Functionist Council is a group of twelve that- yeah, serve to judge people by their alt-modes. They got more and more power in the government until they took over. They run the whole planet now. They determine what job you do, who you can associate with- whether you have the right to live or not."

"That's… horrible," Tailgate said, leaning back against the medical berth, edges digging into his palms, "What if you don't want to do what they tell you to?"

Lug's optics lit up, glittering with excitement as she grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly.

"In that case, Tailgate," she told him, "You join the rebellion."

* * *

Tailgate double checked the habblock number in his HUD before he stretched up and knocked. The door swung open immediately and he was greeted by a standard looking data slug, black and white plating with a red faceplate and blue visor.

"There you are! Come in, come in," the dataslug ushered Tailgate into the apartment and shut the door behind him. "Tailgate, right? My name is Rewind. I'm your handler." 

"You live here?" Tailgate said, looking around. The place seemed well furnished for something lived in by a member of the disposable class.

"Yes, but not alone. Don't worry, my owner is on the level. Come here, and sit down, you never want to be standing for this, people always fall over."

"Is it going to hurt?" Tailgate asked, nervously, and crawled into one of the seats. 

"No- I mean, not physically. Emotionally it's going to be awful." 

"That fills me with confidence, thank you."

Rewind paused, unspooling a connection cable, "Do you not want to do this anymore? You can back out."

"No, I'm still doing it," Tailgate said quickly, "I want to know everything I can." 

"Six million years of history, coming up," Rewind said, spinning the data cable in one hand, before he climbed up beside Tailgate and plugged him in. 

The download was _brutal._

Six million years of oppression and violence, condensed into a thirty second download. It was a lot. It was too much. It was awful. 

Rewind unplugged him and pulled away, sitting back. "How are you doing, then, champ?" 

"Bad," said Tailgate, leaning forward, head spinning, "Wow. Things have gotten _bad._ "

"Tell me about it. I've been here."

"How can you live knowing you have an obsolescence chip in your brain?" Tailgate gasped, "That you could be killed at any moment? How do you live like that?" 

Rewind's visor dimmed. "I try to make each moment count. I know it could be my last. We all do."

Tailgate leaned forward on his hands, panting, then looked back up. "Hit me again. I need more than the basics. I need to know everything."

Rewind blinked at him. "You can't store that much."

"Then give me as much as you can," Tailgate insisted, "I won't ever be caught unawares again."

Rewind regarded him carefully for a moment, visor narrowed, before he nodded sharply. 

"Tailgate," he said, holding the data cable up again, "We are going to make you the best spy Cybertron's ever seen."

* * *

Tailgate did not like the things he learned had happened while he was sleeping beneath the surface of Cybertron. He did not like the state the world had found itself in, the oppressive fascist regime that cataloged people by their purpose and dictated who lived and who died, when and why and how. 

The only thing he _did_ like was that he had been fortunate enough to get found by the rebels and not someone else. The Anti-Vocationist League, as they called themselves, seemed to be the only people on the planet putting any effort into fighting back. Tailgate knew from the moment he realized what the world had become with perfect diamond clarify that he would rather die than go gently in that good night, bow his head and let these people file him away as one more number in their perfect little world of ones and zeroes. People were people. Tailgate was a person, and he was not his alt-mode.

Tailgate had initially hesitated to disclose his alt-mode and his original classification as a waste disposal unit, but it turned out that waste disposal unit was basically the best thing he could possibly be as a fresh face in the rebellion. A waste disposal unit with no obsolescence chip could go almost anywhere and hear almost anything and no one would look twice at him, he was so far beneath their contempt. Quick to adapt to cover stories and with the help of Rewind's data dumps, Tailgate felt that he made an excellent undercover agent, and his piles of reports, enough to fill entire rooms, confirmed that.

* * *

He was several years into the bit when he was called to speak to General Anode alone. He'd met her on a few occasions, mostly with reports but never alone. She always seemed to be surrounded by people, always having seven different conversations at once, managing sixteen different plans and all their contingencies at once. He found her to be fierce and passionate and incredibly decisive. 

She wasn't facing the door when he pushed it open and stepped inside the war room, shutting it behind him. He waited a moment for her to acknowledge him, and when she didn't, he synthesized a cough.

"Ah-" she startled, sitting up, unlike her, "Tailgate. Sorry. Right."

Tailgate crossed the room to stand in front of her, almost optic level when she was sitting like this. 

"How was Praxus?" Anode asked.

"Uneventful," Tailgate told her, "The lead was a bust. The Enigma they had there was a fake. It's all in my report." 

"Right," she said, absently, leaning forward, hands clasped in front of her face, optics gazing through him. Tailgate looked around the room again, dimly lit, monitors off, empty. 

"What is this?" he asked, "What's the big secret?" 

General Anode's optics refocused on him, sharp. "This assignment is optional," she said, straightening up. 

"That's a bad start," Tailgate commented. 

"No one else knows about this," she told him, "Your choice stays between you and me."

"You're spooking me." 

Anode tapped her face again. "I have an opportunity right now to get someone into the Cog. To get them close enough to the Twelve that we could get information that could save-" she shuttered her optics, looking strained, "I don't know. _Thousands_ of lives. Maybe more."

"That sounds like an opportunity you can't pass up." 

"I can," she mumbled, "If I have to."

"Into the heart of the Functionist's home base," Tailgate said, mostly to himself, "There's no extraction from this, is there?"

Anode's optics flicked back to him and she shook her head, sitting back up. "You're quick on the uptake. No. There's no extraction. There's no way. I don't foresee any end to this assignment where you aren't dead, if you go."

Tailgate mulled it over. "Why me?" 

"It has to be you," she sighed, "Yesterday a waste disposal bot from the Cog was arrested for blasphemy. Tomorrow he's getting replaced. His replacement, however, contacted us to get him out. He's got a deformed T-cog, and he's managed to skirt by so far by keeping under the radar, but this is a death sentence for him." 

"So you have the perfect opportunity to put me in his place," Tailgate nodded, "Send me up to the Cog, and report back."

"I have a contact in the Cog," she told him, "he can funnel you information that… could change everything. We could find out what they're talking about, in private. We could know which classes are on the chopping block ahead of time." 

Tailgate stared at her, grateful as usual for his visor and mouthplate, how they always stayed cool no matter how distinctly un-cool he felt. "But I'll definitely die on this assignment eventually." 

"No one else knows," she said, gesturing to the empty room, "It's your choice. Between you and me. I won't ask you to do this." 

"You don't have to ask me," said Tailgate firmly, raising his chin, "I'll do it." 

* * *

"My contact in The Cog is named Whirl," Anode told him. Tailgate leaned forward as Airshock dug into his back, twisting whatever tool they had in their claws.

"I feel like I know that name. It's ringing a bell but I can't put a face to the name," Tailgate said, squinting.

"Unfortunate phrasing. He's an original empuratee. Pre-Senate fall," Anode showed him a datapad with a picture of the mech in question pulled up, "He used to be a Senate enforcer, but he sided with the Functionists when they took Vector Sigma. He's Four-of-Twelve's personal bodyguard." 

Tailgate's optical display widened in surprise. "Personal bodyguard? For a council member? _That's_ your contact?" 

"That's my contact." 

Airshock grabbed his hood and yanked it up. Tailgate ducked into the motion, startled. Airshock shoved it into place and then cranked something in lower, and he winced with a groan. 

"How did you manage that?" he asked, trying to ignore the work being done on his frame. The changes weren't much, but the mech he was replacing was at least subtley different from him, a much newer forged unit. Higher placed hood, wider waist, bigger treads on his tires- subtle, but he wasn't going to be caught for something like that if he could help it. 

"He was chosen for the position a few centuries ago. He made contact with me just before he went into The Cog full time. I promised him if I ever had a chance to plant someone inside I would. I haven't had that chance until now."

"Hundreds? He can't possibly still be expecting someone to come." 

"I promised him," Anode shook her head, "I told him I would, no matter how long it took. I have faith."

Tailgate exvented heavily. He didn't know where she derived that faith from.

"How will I make contact with him? He's never away from Four-of-Twelve." 

”You won't- he'll make contact with you. He gave me a song, something old, pre-Senate, even, obscure enough it's not been banned by the Council yet, but historically significant for its artistic value, anyway. Just go to work, do you job, and hum it when he's in the room. He'll know I've sent you by that."

"What's the song?" 

"It's called _T_ _he Empyrean Suite_."

Tailgate nodded. "I'll get it from Rewind."

Anode regarded him for another moment, concerned. "If he doesn't make contact, run. Run, and we'll find you."

"There's no way they won't come after me if I vanish," Tailgate shook his head. "I just have to risk it."

"Right."

Anode turned away, "If this is the last time we meet, then all I have to say, I guess," she paused, optics tracking in thought, "Is good luck."

* * *

Tailgate shifted his too-high hood again, shaking the haze from his visor. "Oh, Primus, hit me again." 

Rewind passed the bottle back to his friend, wiping at his intake with a hiccup. "Go easy on it," he laughed, "This is a finite resource."

"You know, I didn't believe you when you said your owner was cool," Tailgate coughed, and leaned back, taking an oversized swig from the bottle of engex, "I'm starting to believe you." 

Rewind waved a hand, dismissively, "He's not- he's different. I can't tell you. Its secret. But he's different."

"Oh, you know me," Tailgate purred, leaning forward and punching Rewind in the shoulder, "I can't keep a secret for the life of me." 

Rewind rolled this optical display at him and grabbed the bottle back, "No. I can't get into it. Not even the engex is getting you _my_ secrets, jerk." 

"Think of it, Rewind," Tailgate grabbed him by the shoulders and splayed his hand out in front of him as if he were showing him something, "We're probably the only disposables to get drunk in years." 

"You underestimate how much people like drinking," Rewind scoffed, "and how many people actually believe we're disposable."

Tailgate groaned, "I doubt it."

"You're so cynical sometimes," Rewind commented, and took another drink. He paused, lost in thought. 

"You know, the whole point of a handler is that I don't know who you're meeting and you don't know who I'm meeting, but," Rewind swished the bottle, staring at it, "You're going into The Cog and you're meeting someone who can't leave or meet you somewhere else. There's only a few people that could be, all of them terrifying." 

"Oh?"

"This is one of those no extraction assignments, huh?" 

Tailgate looked back at him and shrugged.

"It is, then," Rewind murmured, "Guess there's worse ways to go."

"Are you kidding!" Tailgate grabbed the bottle back, "Every day we go outside is a risk. Anybody could kill either of us for any reason they wanted without any repercussions. What kind of life is that? I don't want to die for no reason. That's not how I want to leave this world."

Rewind nodded and Tailgate took another drink.

"I won't go out quietly. I won't let them silence me like a trash can without thoughts or feelings," Tailgate spat, fists tightening around the neck of the bottle, "I'm willing to die. I'm happy to die. But it's going to be for a goddamn reason. It's going to matter. It's going to be loud and it's going to be desperate and it's going to _matter._ " 

Rewind exvented harshly, took the bottle back and raised it. "Cheers," he said, firmly, and drank.

"The guy I'm meeting, though," Tailgate murmured, "He _is kind_ of terrifying."

Rewind tilted his head in thought. "Let's see. Alright. Don't tell me. I mean, I wouldn't dare assume it's one of the Twelve, that would be insane, but I guess if it was, that would be plenty terrifying. Who else is up there? There's Quark. He's terrifying. Forged, pre-war, proton microscope. Works with the useless one. I hear he's got a particular affinity for torture." 

Tailgate shuddered. 

"Delta Magnus is there a lot of the time as leader of the Primal Vanguard," Rewind tapped his faceplate, "Terrifying. He's the size of ten of me and could probably throw me across the continent. Then there's Star Saber, Duly-Appointed Enforcer of the Primus Accord. He's… intense. Religious. Devout. If I had to guess anyone, it would be him. He's not exactly on our side, but he doesn't always agree with the Council's decisions. At least, so I've heard."

Tailgate took back the bottle and finished it. "Terrifying prospects, all," he murmured.

"There's also Four-of-Twelve's bodyguard, Whirl," Rewind leaned on his hand, "Now there's a guy you don't want to tango with." 

"Oh yeah?" Tailgate asked, innocently. 

"He's an early empuratee. People say it scrambled his brains, that they removed all his emotions along with his face," Rewind told him, tapping his camera and projecting a silent video of the mech in question against the wall, of him standing in front of the old Senate Hall and beating some poor sod's skull against the pavement, "He was a Senate enforcer when the Functionists took control of Vector Sigma. The Senate barricaded themselves in the Hall, but he just went mental. Killed like three senators himself and broke down the doors from the inside, let the Functionists in. He had Star Saber's job for awhile, but even the Council thought maybe he was a little too violent. He's been less notorious since he became Four's guard dog, but. They say he doesn't feel pain. You could rip his arm off and he'd just keep fighting like it was nothing." 

Tailgate watched the mech projected on the wall heave up the mech in the ground and tear out his spine. Energon splattered his frame, pink on blue. Tailgate shivered. "Terrifying." 

Rewind turned the video off and grabbed Tailgate's hands. "Whoever it is, everyone else there is your _enemy_ . Tailgate, be _careful._ If you get caught, you're dead. Your contact is dead. _I'm_ dead."

Tailgate glanced back at Rewind, his one and only friend in the world, tightening his grip on his hands. "I won't let them get you." 

"You can't protect me anymore than I can protect you," Rewind reminded him. 

Tailgate swallowed, turned away, shivered. "I report in eight hours. You didn't sign up for this. Do you want me to run?" 

"Would you, if I asked you to?" 

Tailgate turned back to face him. "I don't know. Are you asking me to?" 

Rewind's optics tracked him for a moment, and finally shook his head. "We all die eventually. Just try to give me a little longer, will you? I'm not done here yet."

"I'll give you as long as I can," Tailgate whispered, voice hoarse with static. 

In the dim light of Rewind's habsuite, two disposable class minibots pressed their foreheads together, optics off, clutching an empty bottle of engex, and sat in silence. 


	2. Second Circle: Lust

"Present identification," the guard rumbled, voice gruff like train tracks in a storm. Tailgate withdrew his identification credentials, the one he'd gotten from the waste disposal unit who was _supposed_ to be here today. The guard took it, inspecting it carefully, and looked him over with a studious optic. Tailgate could practically taste the disdain wafting from him. He blinked his visor innocently, hands clasped in front of him, polite and patient. 

The guard handed him back his identification and shuffled him along. "Next!" 

Tailgate ducked his head and shuffled away, subspacing his identification card. He joined another group of janitorial class minibots standing by the back right wall. Two other waste disposal bots that looked nearly identical to him, a wet-clean unit, something he thought might be a shredder. Tailgate folded his hands and stood in silence with the group, optics staring at the ground like the rest, until a Cybe approached them, scowling. 

"Overflow," the bot stated, a tall, lithe figure with a face that looked like it couldn't smile if it wanted to, "You're new." 

"Ah, yes!" Tailgate exclaimed, and then bowed, "I am honoured to have the opportunity to serve the Council." 

"Right," said his apparent supervisor, "You're going to be in E wing, trash collection. Just empty all the cans and throw them in the incinerator on floor three. When you've finished that, clean the floors." 

"Thank you, sir," Tailgate said, still holding the bow. The other mech snorted at him, but left without saying anything else. 

Eventually a loading bay door opened and the rest of the janitorial class began loading into the shuttle that arrived, and Tailgate followed the group. The shuttle doors shut behind them and plunged them into pitch black darkness. No one spoke. The shuttle docked, presumably with The Cog, floating above the city, and the bay doors rolled open, sterile white light pouring in and making Tailgate squint and raise a hand to cover his visor, optical feed struggling to adjust.

When he blinked away the blown-out white balance, the group began to shuffle out and Tailgate ducked his head, keeping up with the group until they dispersed through the halls. He hadn't been given a map and there didn't seem to be any signage to direct him to E wing, which was frustrating. How did they expect him to do his job if they didn't even tell him where it was? He picked the side more bots had gone in and hoped he would find his way. 

The halls of The Cog were pure white, medical almost, utilitarian. Functional. The other bots vanished quickly into the labyrinth, silent, to do their duties, and left him wandering alone. He found, quickly, the halls were labeled with block letters just below the ceiling, large and black and bold. He was in F wing, so he was in the right direction, at least. As long as he kept moving and looked like he knew where he was going it was unlikely he would be questioned.

He passed someone as he moved, a Cybe he recognized as Quark, the microscope, the one that worked with The Useless One, the one that liked torture. Tailgate kept his head down and the stranger kept walking without looking at him twice. He turned a corner, and like it was placed by Primus himself, the label in the wall told him he was in E wing. 

He found the trash receptacles fairly easily. They were in obvious places. The first day, he did his job and didn't see much of anyone else. Quark passed by a few times, back and forth, muttering and busy-bodied. He was always holding a data pad, mouthing along the words as he read and wrote. Sometimes Tailgate tried to watch his lips move, see if he could read them, but he didn't get anything important. "Not responding," "Adaptus," "stimuli." Nothing useful. He marked them down in a notepad in his HUD anyway, along with the map he was drawing. 

His shift lasted twelve hours, long and slow and tedious, and at the end of it he received a ping telling him to report to the hangar bay. He dropped off his last load at the incinerator and went back to where he had started. The shuttle docked. He and the others boarded. They waited in darkness. 

"Overflow." 

Tailgate looked up, as the others surged around him like a quiet wave, moving in a pack to somewhere they knew to go to. The tall, frowning mech was watching him, and Tailgate looked up at him expectantly, as silent as a disposable should be. 

"You're staying in D block, cel four. You will report back here in eight hours for your next shift." 

Tailgate bowed his head in acknowledgement. The taller bot tapped his audial, pinging him the coordinates for his habblock, and walked away. Tailgate followed the other disposables along the path to the habitation block. For only a moment he was outside, and he got to see the stars, and then in the next, he was back indoors, ducked into the disposable recharge lot. Rows of cels, tiny rooms, his being number four. The door didn't have a lock. 

There wasn't a berth, wasn't even room for it. It was practically a closet, with a crude energon dispenser and the recharge slab upward at an angle so he was practically standing if he wanted to shut down and recharge. He opened a commline to Rewind. 

[Just got to my new habsuite.] He looked around the tiny room, visor dimming with disdain. It could be worse, at least. 

[Great!] Rewind commed back. [Is it nice?]

[It's efficient.]

[Make any new friends?]

[Not yet.] He couldn't say much over comms, too easy to break into, too easy to overhear, but one disposable being friends with another wasn't going to raise any alarm bells, they hadn't outlawed socializing within your own class just yet. 

[I'm sure you will!]

[I'm sure I will.] Tailgate climbed into his recharge slab. [Talk to you later.]

[Talk to you later, Overflow.] 

Tailgate cut his comm. He liked undercover work, he really did. Loved acting, selling the story, knowing he was always one step ahead of everyone in the room. He just hated changing his name. It was _his_ name and he liked it. He'd get used to it, eventually.

He plugged in and went offline. 

Seven hours later he was up to refuel and find the communal washracks for the block, scrub down and get ready for another shift. He was back in the shuttle hangar early, passed through ID check and waited in the corner patiently with the rest of the janitorial staff. He noted down what order they arrived in and who looked like they hadn't washed. All information was important. 

He found his way to E wing quicker this time, since he knew the way. Quark passed by as he was emptying a hallway receptacle, muttering to himself about the Primal Pentateuch, and disappeared around a corner just as unceremoniously as he arrived. Tailgate was starting to believe that would be the only non disposable bot he would run into here when he heard footsteps approaching in the distance, much louder than Quark's quick tinny pedes made.

Tailgate kept his head bowed, leaning into the grout he was scrubbing as one of the Twelve turned a corner and entered his hallway, cape billowing behind him. 

Following him was Whirl. 

Just as the two passed, Tailgate began humming _The Empyrean Suite_ , a lilting composition that evoked a grim resignation in him, rather than the praise and adulation it supposedly was intended to. He heard Four-of-Twelve's footsteps stop as the Council member lingered a moment, several steps passed him.

"Waste disposal unit," he said, his voice a flat mask of unfeeling glyphs and dissonant soundfiles, "What song is that?"

Tailgate stopped humming, stopped scrubbing, kept his head bent low even as his fuel raced through his lines. 

" _The Empyrean Suite_ , my Lord," he said, optics on the ground.

"Ah, yes," said Four-of-Twelve, "Composed by Eucryphia. It has been some time since I've heard it."

"Apologies, my Lord," Tailgate said, "It has not been listed as an anti-functionary composition. The rhythm helps me keep time when I work." 

"Hm," said Four-of-Twelve, who didn't sound much concerned at all, "You're right. That is a mistake. Find a new composition to help you keep time, waste disposal unit."

"Of course, my Lord. I dearly apologize for my misstep."

"Primus is merciful, little one," Four-of-Twelve said, resuming his walk, "You are forgiven what you did not know." 

Four-of-Twelve vanished around the other end of the hall, followed by his bodyguard, who remained silent. Tailgate lingered over the grout he had been scrubbing, lost in thought. Had Whirl remembered the song after all this time? Did he still want to connect with the rebellion? Had he just sealed his fate? His hands began moving again, working dirt out of the seam lines of the metal, spark hammering in his chest. He would know soon enough. 

It wasn't until the next day he saw him again. Well- he didn't see him exactly. Not until he had been tripped over like a displaced waste basket.

Tailgate cried out in shock and alarm as claws wrapped around his neck and lifted him full into the air before slamming him against the wall with enough force to make him reset his optical display. The bodyguard's one yellow optic bored into him, emotionless, and Tailgate scrabbled at his tightening claws with his fingers, legs kicking beneath him. He was starting to panic, vocalizer warbling and spitting static, unable to relieve the pressure on his throat.

"Watch where you're standing, trashcan," the cobalt helicopter he was supposed to be meeting said to him, voice hoarse and raspy, like gravel in a grinder. 

"I'm sorry-" Tailgate managed to get out, clutching the claws on his neck, terrified. Whirl's optic narrowed at him. 

"Are you?" he asked, dangerously. 

"Oh, put it _down_ , Whirl," Four-of-Twelve groaned, "We have places to be today." 

Whirl's claws opened and Tailgate slid down the wall to collapse on the ground in a heap, shrinking back and bowing his head, hoping the interaction was over. 

"Whatever," said Whirl, turning away and stomping after Four-of-Twelve as their pedesteps echoed away down the hall and disappeared into the distance. It took Tailgate more than a minute to calm down enough that he noticed the dataslug that had been shoved into his collar seam, hidden between plating. 

* * *

Back in his habcel, Tailgate pulled an encrypted datapad from his subspace, tiny, hidden, and plugged the data slug in to investigate its contents. Contained therein was a single text file, and Tailgate opened it, visor glittering with intrigue. 

> hi there!!! sorry about punching you. or choking you or kicking you or whatever lol. im writing this in advance obviously but thats the plan, like, rough you up and just sort of plop this into ur hands somehow. im kind of a play it by audials guy. anyway my point is im sorry for hurting you little guy but itd be super suspicious if i interacted with someone disposable class in any other way lmao. i mean not really lmao but like what the fuck else am i supposed to say, you know? shits fucked. anyway your reading this so hooray! i did it. unless your aren't the little guy, your four, in which case, get fucked, youll never take me alive, scrapeater!
> 
> lmao anyway. sorry for rambling its kind of been awhile since i got to speak to anybody. four dont talk much. not about anything that matters anyway. im just a guard dog so like he dont keep me around for the conversation. im just excited! i didnt think she would ever send anybody. its been ages. years? i dont even know how many. ive lost track of time. sometimes i feel like time moves around me like an ocean and im floating in it, moving back and forward and up and down all at once. and then i don't know when or where i am but my feet keep moving, you know. maybe you dont know? i dont know.
> 
> my name is whirl! i dont know your name. i dont really know a way to find out. im sorry about that. hey society is fucked huh lol. you know they didnt come up with this disposable class shit until i was like 200 or something and i was like hmmmmm i dont know about that one chief. sounds fake but okay. im gonna do my best to pay attention and see if i cant find out because i mean like you know i should know it! we work together now and we are definitely both gonna die lol right? so like i should know it. if i can't figure it out im not calling you fucking waste disposal unit tho fuckin yuck ummmmmm nickname nickname nicknaaaaame. i used to be so good at nicknames you dont even know. okay whatever ill workshop it. ill come up with something little dude.
> 
> okay so heres the plan. between e wing and d wing is the commissary. once a week on thursdays four goes in and gets his rations and while we are there i grab a can of phos to chug and then i toss it in the corner bin, the one by that stupid fucking picture of adaptus stupid fuckin head. if i got anything for you im gonna put it on a data slug and put it in the empty can before i toss it okay? so thursdays check the bin find the can get the slug. thats the plan. ummm if theres a problem with the plan or some reason why the plan wont work okay, um, take the top from that can and switch it with the top of the one by the dispenser, they both have like different scratches and stuff. ill notice. um i might have to punch you again. sorry about that in advance. anode is cool but i hope she sent someone who like knew what they were getting into lmao
> 
> yeah on that note like. i hope you know this could go turrets up at like any second you know like. kapow. poof. dead whirlibird and whoever you are. now me im good for that tbh like ive had kind of a long shitty fucking life and i'm pretty much good to tank the fuckin thing whenever. im in too deep to get out any other way you feel me. guess ur in it too now. so like, lets stick it to the motherfraggers together eh?? you and me legs, we gonna fuck em up. gruesome twosome. let's give em hell, huh?

Tailgate leaned back, regarding the message curiously. He had been prepared for a lot, but not exactly that. What a strange character. He could certainly ramble. Tailgate was used to a lot more brevity in under the table, illicit messages between undercover contacts. It occurred to him Whirl was probably lonely. 

He was used to long jobs without any friends. He was really only _friends_ with Rewind- he knew Brigadier Lug well enough and he'd met Airshock enough times he might consider them a friend if they seemed even remotely interested in being friends. There wasn’t really anyone else that he knew long term- he’d brushed shoulders here and there with other people, like Anode, Flip-Sides, Drift, Slamdance, Howlback, Arcee- he'd _met_ all these people, but he didn't _know_ them. He’d gotten pretty good at stowing away all his thoughts, never to be shared, but at least he could ramble on with Rewind once in a while. He wondered if his new contact had anyone at all.

He went to wipe the slug and then paused, grabbed an uplink cable from his wrist and connected to the datapad instead. He committed it to hard memory and then wiped the slug and stashed it in his subspace to toss in the incinerator the following day. 


	3. Third Circle: Gluttony

Whirl leaned back idly in his seat, a datapad in hand with _Radiology as it Relates to Bimodal Medicine_ on screen, text highlighted in hodge-podge patterns, pink and yellow across the screen. It was boring, but practical. All he had to do was clock out the basic coursework, the generic stuff anybody with any kind of medical field had to get through and then he could get to the good stuff: specialization. He'd known since basically day one when he was forged he was going to make chronos, no matter what the mech at the functionary office who smiled too much said. He knew what he was about. 

He swished a can of phos back and forth, and looked up when he heard a familiar overtaxed engine stuttering, its owner building up yet another rage.

"It's stupid!" Anode yelled, stomping into the dormitory lounge, "I'm telling you, Pharma has no _idea_ what he's talking about. Blablabla consolidation of the species, it's a bunch of functionary crap and I'm tired of hearing it!" 

"You ever think maybe you just don't get along with Pharma because of engine envy?" Whirl snorted, and took a sip of phos, enjoying the rush it gave him to read one more paragraph of trite textbook dialogue. 

"I don't get along with _Pharma_ because he's a bigoted scrapheap!" Anode yelled back, wings flapping, spark on her sleeve as usual. 

"Save it for the forum, Anode, dormitories are supposed to be quiet areas," Whirl waved his datapad at her, "Some of us actually _do_ our homework." 

"Oh, come off it, I know you're just as bad as he is, but at least _he_ has the excuse of having a B-tier alt-mode to justify it!" she huffed, setting her hands on her hips. Whirl only just noticed the underclassman who was trailing behind her, a skittish rotary who didn't seem to have much to say, "You and me are down in C, and we're lucky to be here as it is! I'll never understand why you _insist_ on siding with him."

"I didn't say I sided with him on _ratioism_ ," Whirl rolled his optics, "All I said was that he's right about culture creep."

"It's not culture creep! Didn't you read my term paper?" 

"And most of your citations come from beastformer colonies, which are _heavily_ influenced by organic culture creep!" Whirl pointed his stylus pen at her, "You're arriving at a preconceived conclusion because of personal bias. All I'm saying is that we are an asexual mechanoid race and we don't have gender, it's not in our history. Just because your friend in the Primal Vanguard told you about some cool species with a cool culture thing you liked doesn't mean it makes any sense for _us_ to start doing it."

"That is _so_ reductive!" Anode snapped, "What about Prima, and-"

Whirl snapped up, looking behind him and then shushed her, scowling, "Hey! Come on, you know better than to talk about stuff like that. We're literally in commons right now, you'll get us in trouble. We're C-tier, remember?" 

Anode crossed her arms, frowning, but her optics betrayed her own sudden hesitation and fear. "Right. Whatever. Fine."

Whirl turned back to his datapad, but stared through it, suddenly distracted by anxiety, "I didn't say I wouldn't _use_ your weird pronouns, I said I think it's dumb and silly and you're going to quit it eventually when you get bored." 

"You're such an aft," she hissed, "I think I'd rather debate Pharma, at least he's honest about being a jerk." 

"If you like losing races, by all means, go hang out with Pharma instead," Whirl mumbled, "Seriously, I have to finish reading this tonight, can you do your rant somewhere else?" 

"Fine, whatever. Afthole. Come on, Airshock," Anode grabbed her new victim's hand and dragged them through the common room toward the elevator up to the dormitories, and Whirl snorted sympathetically, before returning to his work. 

* * *

Whirl lingered in the darkness, resisting the urge to tap a pede and give himself away. Back pressed against the wall, he waited and hoped against hope he didn't fuck it up. 

He heard the key in the lock and he tensed up, and had to shake his vision when it clouded red for a moment, panic taking over clarity. He waited for the door open and for the light to turn on to grab the entering mech and clamp a claw tightly enough around her face that she couldn't cry out. He kicked the door shut with one leg. 

"Are you alone?" he rasped, even as she wriggled desperately, frantically, trying to escape his grasp. "Shut up! Are you _alone_ , Anode?" 

She seemed to pause when he said her name and twisted to look up at him. Her face morphed into confusion and then into _anger-betrayal-hatred_ and he hissed through his vents.

"Fuck it, you wouldn't tell me if you weren't. Listen. I don't have much time. Don't fucking scream. If I wanted to hurt you, you'd be hurt. I need to _talk_." Whirl released her and she gasped, shoving back and stumbling away from him.

" _You_ ," she hissed, pointing accusingly. He noted the tremble in her frame and wondered if she thought she was about to die. 

"Yeah, me, whatever," he sliced a claw through the air, dismissing the statement, "Like I said, I ain't got much time. Star Saber will be back soon and if he notices I'm gone then this was all fucking pointless." 

"I don't want anything to do with _you_ ," she snapped, "Not you _or_ the Council. Go ahead and tell them I said that, I'll die on this hill."

"No the fuck you _won't,_ " Whirl snarled, "You're going to live because I _need_ you to live. Listen. _Listen_ to me. I know you're involved in the resistance or the rebellion or whatever the fuck. The anti-voc? Somebody else? I know you are."

Her optics widened, betraying sudden genuine fear. "No, I'm not! Who told you that? They're a liar, I'm-"

"Nobody told me _shit_. But I _know_ you. You give more of a shit than anybody should and it was always gonna fuck you over eventually. There's no way you're not. I got faith in that much. That's why I'm here. I need your help."

She stared at him, uncomprehending, "My _help_? You need my _help_?" 

"Yes, your help, you idealistic son of a- daughter of a glitch, whatever the fuck your words are. Girl. It's girl! That's the one, the word. I knew as soon the Council put up that shit about banning culture creep you'd _never_ give in. That's who you are! I ain't been a good bot, Anode, I know that, but I ain't here for me. They're moving me from Enforcer to Four's personal bodyguard."

"You can't be serious."

"You think I'm still a fuckin jokester? You think I got any goddamn jokes left in me?"

"No."

"I gotta go. I'm expected back. Once they get me in this gig that's it. I'm fucked. I'm never getting out. I'm never gonna be out of his sight for the rest of my life," Whirl looked back at the window to her habblock that he'd left open, Cybertron's lighthouse beyond, "It's too late for me. Probably always been too late. But you wanna know something? Four is a goddamn chatterbox. Chatty fuckin cathy, biplane."

"So?" she challenged, rubbing at her jaw where he'd grabbed her.

" _So_ the next time they decide to wipe out the fuckin energon dispensers, I might _hear about it_. And if you can get me someone, someone I can tell who can get away and tell someone else then that shit can get _back_ to all the goddamn energon dispensers. You get me?" 

"That… that's suicide," she scoffed, " _When_ you get caught, you're dead, they're dead, fuck, _I'm_ dead. Why would you think I even have the power to _do_ that? I'm nobody, I'm _barely_ involved in the resistance."

"What if the next wave is _backpacks,_ huh?"

Anode looked stricken.

"Thought so," Whirl glanced back at the window. "If you can't do it, you find someone who can. I'll wait as long as I have to. Just tell them to hum the old Empyrean Suite, yeah? That's how I'll know you sent 'em."

"I… Whirl, I don't know if I can help you. I'm nobody, I'm just… I'm just a blacksmith. Sometimes I manage to hand off sparklings with recalled alt-modes to a friend of mine underground but that's… that's it. I'm nobody."

Whirl shook his head and grabbed her shoulders. "Anode, you are the most insufferable motherfucker I've ever met. You have never known when to shut up, not even once in your life. You made medschool completely fucking miserable."

"...Thanks?"

"I don't trust anyone else on this fucking planet more than you," he said, voice straining against the limits of his simple vocalizer to express earnest emotion, "You give a shit like no one else does. I have _faith_ in you, Anode, and you know I'm a goddamn atheist." 

Anode bit her lower lip, hands fisted at her sides, and then nodded, sharp and forceful. "I'll find a way, Whirl. I'll send someone. Just wait. I'll figure it out." 

Whirl softened, limbs sagging, and then he let her go and crossed back to the window. "If this is the last time we meet, then all I have to say, I guess," he said, looking back at her one final time, "Is good luck."

Whirl ducked out of the window and transformed halfway to the ground, and just like that, he was gone.

* * *

It was a Thursday. Quiet. Boring. Predictable. The first Thursday of the rest of his life.

Whirl drained his can of phos while Four sat in his usual spot, sipping his cube of premium-grade in the commissary. He cast his optic at Four, who was buried in his datapad, before he shifted his grip and slid a data slug from his wrist into the empty can, walked to the stupid picture of Adaptica on the wall, Primus bless it, and tossed the can in the bin. He crossed the room back to Four, who hadn't even looked up. Stupid bastard. 

He was still lingering by the wall when the little spy came in, and started emptying the bin by the Adaptica mural. Whirl tried not to stare, but thought maybe he could get away with it since there wasn't anything else interesting happening in the room. 

He was such a little guy! Whirl couldn't get over it. He was tiny enough to punt across the continent. _This_ little guy had managed to infiltrate The Cog? It set Whirl's mind afrenzy, trying to imagine what kind of person could do that. Was he as innocent and orderly as he looked? Some rebel pretender who was just good at his job? Maybe he was a frame jumper, someone who'd grabbed a waste disposal unit from a Relinquishment clinic millennia ago and swapped in for the job. Some kind of super spy. Maybe he was no one, just some friend of Anode's who got lucky. He wondered if he would ever know. Whoever he was, showing up here like this made the little guy one brave motherfucker in Whirl's book.

The little bot set the cap of the can to the side as he pulled out the bag and spun it, replacing the liner. What a weird frame, all square and round at the same time, with big shoulders and wide hips and these tiny little arms and legs on the end. Kind of cute, in a funny way. The minibot set the cap back on the cleaned bin and left the room as quietly as he'd entered, contraband in tow. 

Whirl looked back down at the table, staring through it, silent. He'd put as much on that one as he dared, what he knew about the current plans for mode retirement, the whispers he'd heard about the Primal Vanguard's ongoing conflict with the Black Box Consortia. Whatever he could think of. It was a report he'd probably written in his mind a million times by now, all the things he would tell someone if he had the chance, the warnings he would give. He hoped it made it to the right people to use it.

If it did, it might make up for _something._ It wouldn't ever be enough, but it would be something. Whirl was an atheist, but he wasn't entirely convinced he didn't believe in Hell just yet. He was ready to die, but more than aware he didn't have the right. Hadn't yet earned that, but he would. Maybe. Hopefully.

His life was never going to be remembered fondly, but if he pulled this stunt off, and got very, very lucky, his death, at least, might just matter. 


	4. Fourth Circle: Greed

Tailgate slipped into his habcel and pulled his datapad from his subspace, loading up the new slug. Two files, for_you.txt and important.txt. Tailgate skimmed quickly and concluded the first was a personal letter and the second was meant to be passed on. He committed the first file to hard memory and wiped it from the slug, then subspaced both and commed Rewind.

[Hey, Rewind] he commed, [Would you like to meet to refuel?]

[I'm free now!] Rewind commed back immediately, bless him, [Meet you at my owner's place?]

[Meet you there!]

He shut down his comm and slipped away. Head up, optics bright, look confident and like you know you're allowed to do what you're doing and no one ever stops to ask if you aren't. 

On the train ride over, pressed shoulder to shoulder with the other disposable minis, he opened Whirl's personal letter on his HUD to read it.

> hi again!! okay this is your first serious info dump. its mostly rumour and stuff but last time the stupid heads went in for a meeting they all came out arguing about the moon war again. i went into it more in the other file but like i dont think the moon war is going super good. 
> 
> anyway in other news you know i gotta recharge during those meetings cuz its the only time four stops being so fuckin paranoid so thats a goddamn hassle. you know how fuckin hard it is to recharge standing up with legs like mine?? ludicrous. just hire someone else for six hours chief itll be fuckin fiiiiine. not like he recharges standing up. four gets a real berth. that's the hoity toity shit them get up to you feel me. smh
> 
> youre tiny!!! i keep thinking like hell you could probably live in this stupid orb and no one would even notice cuz you could just hide. i mean no dont do that it would be like crazy and i don't think it would work like, there's ducts and stuff but they flash fry em once a week literally in case someone tries. im just talking theoretically. are you like a proper spy? your too good at playing it cool for me to think your like a rando. you gotta have done this before. have you done this before? hell thats so cool. have you ever shot anybody? i mean i have but like im imagining your itty bitty little hands holding like a normal sized gun and its buckwild little guy i love it. 
> 
> okay i spent all fuckin night thinkin of nicknames and i got a couple. let me hit you. pipsqueak. panic legs. marshmallow. blue. im telling you, im great at nicknames, half-pint.
> 
> wonder what you used to do. were you always in waste disposal or did you get any big switcheroos? i used to make chronometers. like the internal kind you know, in your chest lol. i had to go to medschool and everything it sucked and it was super boring. and now i just follow four around everywhere and do absolutely fuckin nothing cuz hes the most boring goddamn fascist dictator in all of fuckin history. blablabla okay i gone on long enough ill let you get back to your superspy work. imagine a thumbs up! lol

Tailgate found himself smiling internally despite himself. What a weirdo. Did he expect him to write _back_? Tailgate couldn't think of any genuine reason to risk it and even if he could, he couldn't think of a good way to manage it. Whirl wasn't what he had expected at all, though. Terrifying in person, sure, but obviously there was something else beneath that shell, after all. Tailgate couldn't fathom, before he'd arrived at The Cog, why this terrifying mech would go against the council, but now? He could see it. It made sense now. 

He stepped off the train and scurried as quickly as he could up to Rewind's habfloor. He was cutting into his recharge time and he already didn't get much. Rewind wrenched the door open the second he knocked and ushered him in.

Tailgate crawled up onto a couch immediately and collapsed face first into a cushion with a groan. 

"Ugh, Primus," he whined, "They're working me like a _drone._ Absolute bastards."

"So!" Rewind tittered, crawling up beside him to shake his shoulders, "Your contact! Was he terrifying?"

"He strangled me," Tailgate snorted, "And passed me a data slug. We've got a system now. I'm all good to go." Tailgate pulled the slug from his subspace and held it up.

"Yeesh!" Rewind snatched the slug from him and jacked it into his wrist directly. "Seems a little unnecessary." 

"They're really intense up there," Tailgate sighed, "It was probably the best way. He's actually not so bad. Scary in person, but he wrote me a letter."

"Oh yeah?" Rewind prompted, optical display dimming as he read off his HUD, "What kind of letter?"

"Oh, just like, instructions for drop off and stuff. Also he rambled a lot. I think maybe he's going a little crazy."

"He's working in The Cog and actively betraying them," Rewind cut him a sidelong glance, "He's confirmed for crazy." 

"You just described _me._ "

"I did."

Tailgate picked his head up to glare at him. "Not all of us get to live in cushy uptown flats."

"Come off it," Rewind said, without looking away from his HUD, "You got to nap for six million years. I spent the first fifty thousand after they locked my class down in a warehouse on a shelf. Any longer and they would have just smelted me for the sentio mettalico."

Tailgate rolled over and stared at the ceiling. "I missed a lot."

"Yep," Rewind confirmed, absently.

"You think everyone up there is all bad?" Tailgate asked. "You know who's up there."

"Don't tell me who your guy is, 'Gate, you know the rules "

"I know," Tailgate huffed. "But do you?"

Rewind's visor flickered and he looked at him. "Yeah." 

"Hm," Tailgate hummed. "Alright."

"...Don't get attached," Rewind advised, "You know how this ends."

"I know. Tell me you can give me a shot of anything other than crude," Tailgate said, changing the subject, "I'm dying on this stuff." 

Rewind scooted off the couch and climbed up a bookcase, rooting around until he accessed a hidden compartment and pulled out a bottle of premium. Tailgate sat up and Rewind tossed him the bottle.

"Primus bless," Tailgate mumbled, uncorked the bottle and tipped it back. "I hate crude."

"We all hate crude. You're gonna have to get used to it, I can't smuggle you Prem forever." 

"I _know_. Come on, I'm already eating into my recharge shift. You have to come meet me next time, somewhere closer."

Rewind shut the compartment and jumped down, tapping his mask in thought. "How's about by the titanium depot? That's near your habblock."

Tailgate gave a thumbs up, chugging. 

* * *

The next Thursday, Tailgate found his data slug in the trash where it should be, and was not surprised to find, yet again, two files for him. He committed for_legbot.txt to hard memory, wiped it from the drive and subspaced the slug to pass to Rewind. 

> went off without a hitch huh!!! crushed it. okay i've thrown into the other file all the deets but they're talkin big about recalling the laser pointers. theyve been talking about it for awhile actually, i dunno what their problem with laser pointers is but i think they're approaching a decision and theyre finally gonna gank em. hope your buddies can maybe smuggle some folk out before it goes up. ob chips aint easy to deactivate but they can be blocked out by distance at least. so like space? underground maybe? idk thats yalls job not mine.
> 
> you know i only ever met one laser pointer in my life. his name was diode and he was dumb as a brick. fun tho! nice guy who always bought drinks for anyone who would talk to him for more than five minutes. that guy could seriously gab. just blablabla in your audials for hours!!! fun stories tho at least so it wasnt no big deal. miss that guy. pretty sure hes dead now anyway. 
> 
> you know it was the third big recall that really fucked me up. they recalled all the alarm clocks. i used to make clocks you know! not like people clocks but clock clocks, and chronos. clocks, chronos, watches, all that stuff. point being i used to have a buddy named heinrad and he was a clock. helped me out when i was still learning what the fuck i was doing. he was good to me. real understanding you know. and then they recalled all the alarm clocks cuz like, what's the point of folk turning into clocks when we got clocks inside us or whatever, and bam. that was it. heinrad is dead. i dont even know what he was doing or where he was when his obchip went off. all i know is hes a clock and they killed all the clocks so im never gonna see him again.
> 
> i wonder what he would think of me now. i wonder what he thought of me then. i wouldnt have known how much i loved clocks in the first place without him, i owed him big time, and what did i give him? i gave him the functionists and i gave the functionists the senate. if i hadnt turned on them, would vector sigma have been enough to give the council the power to take over like they did? i dont know but i think about it. maybe im just projecting delusions of grandeur and it never mattered what the fuck I did either way.
> 
> also heads up delta magnus is stopping by on tuesday and the fragger is a total fuckin slob. his treads are always dirty as shit. he leaves tracks up and down the goddamn halls every time he visits. i dunno if theres like anti dirty footprint stuff you can throw down ahead of time to make your life a little easier or something but i figured id at least give you a heads up. hate that guy 

On Tuesday Tailgate laid down a laminate sheet in the E-wing hall, and sure enough, Delta Magnus tracked in mud all over it. The Councilmember he was walking with didn't seem to care a bit about the sheet or even question its purpose, but Tailgate noted happily that the bodyguard following him paused before stepping on it, tilting his helm curiously to the side. 

Whirl glanced over at him, and they met optics only for a moment, Tailgate brightening his visor happily, and Whirl tilted his head ever so, then turned away, following Four-of-Twelve and Delta Magnus before they disappeared around the corner. Tailgate rolled up the laminate and dragged it down to the incinerator, humming a song he'd heard on the train, something approved by the council, totally soulless, but at least it was a bop. 

The next Thursday he found another dataslug in its usual place, and found only the one file loaded on it when he returned to his habcel, boring_content.txt.

> nothin good this week little dude. hope i'm not putting you out by writing anyway. um if i am do the cap switch thing with the trash cans and i'll shut my gab its just nice to fuckin talk for once. i been waiting so long for anode to send somebody!!! i dont even know how long. centuries, right? is it over a thousand yet? i dont even know. i feel like the days just fuckin come and come and come and they never stop and i know outside things are bad, i know things are changing all the time but in here things are the same every day, white walls and schedules and that tick tick tick echo from quarks stupid goddamn pacing all the fuckin time. its nothing. its everything. its fuckin endless. i have no perception of time it just fuckin feels like floating. i wonder if i'll ever get the hell out of here again. i wonder if the stars have changed since the last time i saw them.
> 
> anyway you ever noticed how the halls in this place dont make sense? like e wing connects to f wing and that makes sense like thats logical but then b wing also connects with f wing. what the fuck is up with that. what does that mean. i dont understand it. is that functional? it doesnt seem functional to me. isnt that like the only fuckin upside to functionism is hallways and shit have simple comprehend able layouts? i dont fuckin get it. maybe i got a peanut brain or something but im telling you b dont get followed by f in no alphabet.
> 
> anyway sorry i aint got nothin good this week theyre just being stupid and boring. even delta magnus didnt have anything new he was just like blablabla no status change or whatever check out my shitty dirty tires okay bye. hate to disappoint. ill do better next week. later legs 

Tailgate found himself laughing at the letter despite himself. He really should tell Whirl not to risk leaving a message if he didn't actually have anything to say… every time they did this they risked getting caught. It wasn't worth it. 

Still, though. Maybe whatever catharsis he was getting from rambling would balance it out. Maybe a pent up Whirl took more risks. Maybe it would be fine.

He logged the letter into hard memory and wiped the slug.


	5. Fifth Circle: Anger

> toot toot happy 100th letter motherfucker unlimited!! i hope you still read these and theyre not super obnoxious. i like writing you. its the only thing i get to do when four is recharging. i dont even remember what i used to do anymore. stare into the distance and disassociate for six hours? 
> 
> moon war is over i guess lol. they sold it or whatever? i dunno they dont talk about the moon anymore. bad news for the lunabots. those guys are big its gonna be hard to smuggle any of them out. good luck lmfao. i wonder how many folks your hiding underground now. is the planet just a big fuckin' egg full of rebels yet? lol. then theres you and me floatin above it all in the hell orb. maybe we just go on like this forever. me writing letters, you savin the world, and underneath us the planet just keeps turnin and doing whatever the fuck it does without us, huh? 
> 
> i dunno. i dont know if thats optimism or pessimism anymore either. like i know odds are one day four tells me something fake and i tell you and you tell your boys and then four realizes im a dirty traitor and has me publically executed for treason. maybe it would be nice if things went on like this forever. is it stupid to fantasize about going ham and killing them all, fixing the world and getting a happy ever after? maybe then id get to learn your name. okay heres the plan if things go good, we start over and pretend all this stuff didnt happen and you come up and say hi, nice to meet you, my name is motherfucker unlimited, whats yours? and then i say oh i dunno, it used to be whirl but i think im gonna let whirl be dead now and try being someone else for awhile. and then you say thats a weird fuckin name, do you have a nickname or something? and then i say i used to be great at nicknames but i dont think that's my thing anymore, why dont you give me a nickname. and you then you give me a nickname. a good one! dont sell me short little dude. get it? got it? good.
> 
> star saber has been pacing in the commissary after lunch a lot lately. id stay out of there if i was you. that guy is fuckin unstable. i wouldnt go within twenty feet of him if i was you. ive seen him kick the cleaners before. fuckin hate that guy. 
> 
> anyway happy 100th successful drop. hope your as proud of yourself as i am. i didnt think we would get this far! ttyl 

Tailgate dimmed his visor in endearment at the letter on his HUD. He hadn't been counting drops, didn't realize this was number 100. They really had been doing a good job. 

Tailgate activated his comm. [Hey, Rewind?]

[Hey, Overflow. What's up?]

[Have you left for the depot yet?]

[Not yet, no.]

[Mind if I meet you at your place?]

[My owner's place. That's fine! See you soon.]

Tailgate cut his comm and filed the letter away into hard memory, encrypted, safe with the rest. Another ninety-nine, in fact. He slid out of his habcel and made his way to the metro station, lost in thought.

* * *

"Can you access your database for me and look someone up?" 

"Of course," Rewind scoffed, shutting the door behind him. "Who do you need?"

"A guy named Heinrad. He was an alarm clock."

"Sure." 

Rewind climbed up into the couch and folded his legs, then went rigid, staring at his HUD as he searched. Tailgate waited patiently. 

"Got him," said Rewind, looking up, "What do you need to know?"

"What was he doing when he died?" Tailgate asked.

"He didn't," Rewind told him, "He joined the rebellion way before that. He's underground in Praxus."

"He is?!" Tailgate gasped, bouncing on his heels, "Are you serious? Are you sure?"

Rewind nodded, "Oh, totally sure. Why?"

"Oh, Primus, Rewind, this is awesome! I can't believe it! I have to tell him!" 

"What? Tell who?"

"My _contact_!" Tailgate exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air, "He used to be friends with this guy and he thinks he's dead!"

"You can't _contact_ him, Teeg!" Rewind gasped, "that's not safe!" 

"We've done _one hundred_ successful drops so far," Tailgate argued, "I'll be careful!" 

"Tailgate…"

"Rewind, come on, I've been doing this for _years_ \- I know what I'm doing. I've got this."

Rewind didn't seem convinced. "Is it worth the risk?" 

Tailgate crossed his arms over his chest, looking away. Rewind sighed. 

"Come here, you touch-starved bastard."

"I would die for you," Tailgate said immediately, clambering up next to him on the couch and pressing their sides together, resting his head on his friend's shoulder. 

"Yeah, I know," Rewind grumbled, but put an arm around him anyway. "Man. Didn't I _tell_ you not to get attached, 'Gate?"

"I can't _help_ it!" Tailgate moaned, "I don't talk to anyone else! It's just you and him!"

"You don't talk to him either."

"But he talks to _me_!" Tailgate pinged Rewind a screenshot of his folder full of letters, all with their silly filenames, "I had this whole idea in my head of who he was, and it's just… he's just _not._ He's totally different."

"Do we need to do another history lesson?" Rewind asked, "Do I need to tell you about how Star Saber publicly strung up twenty atheists and cut them in half with a _sword_?"

"Its not fucking Star Saber," Tailgate mumbled.

"Tailgate! I'm not supposed to know who it is!"

"Oh, come on, there's like five people it could be, you've got to have figured it out by now."

"I've been _trying_ not to."

"It's Whirl! It's Whirl, okay!" Tailgate snapped, "And he's not this- this monster you made him out to be! I know what he's done but now I feel like- I feel like I understand why he did the things he has and I think- I think he's deeper than that."

"Dammit, Tailgate," Rewind groaned, burying his face in his hands, "You're better than this. What happened to cool collected espionage agent Tailgate? Why are you acting like this?"

"I'm-" Tailgate huffed, frustrated, and threw himself into Rewind's lap, "You don't understand. You don't know him like I do."

Rewind went quiet, then leaned forward, on top of the other minibot, folding his arms. "Fine. Write your letter. Watch yourself though, like, you're _giving_ him a letter and _telling_ him things, that's dangerously close to proffering _and_ disclosing. You'll give him the wrong idea if you aren't careful."

Tailgate was quiet.

"It _would_ be the wrong idea, _right_ , Tailgate?" Rewind asked, an edge to his tone as he leaned back and pulled at Tailgate to look up at him.

"Obviously," said Tailgate, but apparently not convincingly, because Rewind rolled his optical display.

"You're so dead," he groaned.

"I'm not dead _yet_ ," Tailgate snapped, and rolled back over.

"Right," Rewind sighed, "Not yet."

"It's going to be _fine_ ," Tailgate insisted, "I _promise_."

* * *

> Hello, Whirl!
> 
> Unfortunately I don't feel it's safe to tell you my real name over an unsecured communication like this. I will say that if you do ever overhear anyone using a name for me, it's only my cover identity, not my real name. Keep coming up with nicknames, they're funny. 
> 
> Assuming my plan to get this letter to you goes off without any complications, it will still likely be the only contact I can make with you, at least for a very long time. However, I felt it was important! I hadn't realized we had reached 100 drops until you mentioned it- I wanted to do something special. I had a friend of mine find out about your friend Heinrad. I was planning to tell you how he died, as if there might be some solace in that, but the news is even better! Heinrad is alive! I can't tell you anything else, but I can tell you that. You didn't get him killed. 
> 
> Since this will likely be the only letter I can send you, there's so much I want to say. I'm sure I'll miss things, too, and wish I'd said more. I do in fact read all your letters. I am not a body jumper, this really is just me. I've been doing this a long time. I HAVE shot people before! Not too many though, don't worry. I was missing in action for a long time in a coma. I will not go into specifics, but, I have reasons to believe my time is ultimately limited, irregardless of circumstances.
> 
> Before I took this assignment I researched you. I watched videos of you. I had an idea of you in my head and it's not even close to who you turned out to be and I have genuinely enjoyed getting to know you, through your letters. Thank you for writing them. Do you ever miss making chronometers? Do you think you would go back to making them, if your fantasy came true and we got to start the world over? I thought hard about your question, for a nickname. You once referred to yourself as "Whirlibird" and I like that. I'd nickname you Birdy. I think it's a nice name, something that's softer than you realize. If we make it out of this, I promise to tell you my name. 
> 
> Stay strong, Whirl. Maybe we won't die at the end, after all.
> 
> -Motherfucker Unlimited 

Tailgate saved the letter to the data slug and slid it into his subspace, feeling giddy with anticipation for the day. This was stupid, and it was risky, and he was doing it anyway. 

He spent the morning cleaning E wing as usual, but left for the commissary early, to clear the bins. Whirl and Four were still there, but thank Primus, Star Saber wasn't. Whirl was still working on his daily can of Phos and Tailgate was careful, pulling the bag from the bin and twisting it, even though he could feel Whirl's curious optic watching him nervously, confused why he was doing this early. 

With a firm, steady pace, he turned away from the bin, walked to to the table and pointed at the can in Whirl's claw as it sank, empty.

"Are you finished with that?" Tailgate asked, the first words he had spoken to Whirl since that first interaction. Whirl bounced up in alarm and even Four looked over at him in surprise. 

"Scuse me?" Whirl stammered.

"I apologize, sir," said Tailgate, careful, practiced, "I need to be down to the incinerator earlier than usual today. May I take that if you are done with it?"

"Oh," said Whirl, and Tailgate nearly squealed with delight as Four looked away, back to his datapad, "Yeah, I guess."

Tailgate slid the dataslug out of his wrist subspace, and passed it to Whirl as he took the can from him. Whirl's optic glimmered with surprise and momentary panic as he quickly hid it.

Tailgate took the can and went back to the bin, replaced the lining, and took the trash downstairs, feeling incredibly proud of himself. 

His shift felt absurdly long that day. He was desperate for his next letter from Whirl, to get a response, desperate to know what he thought. 

He wasn't surprised when the next day there was a data slug in the can of phos in the commissary bin, even though it was Tuesday. 

He couldn't help himself humming as he finished up his work for the day, excited for his off shift so he could read. 

* * *

> !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> son of a glitch, you absolute madlad, you fuckin did it!!!!! oh my god you scared the spark out of me, i thought something fucked up had happened! i was sure i was gonna open that slug and find out we were compromised lol!
> 
> all of them?! youve read all of them?! aaaaa! im so glad! i was sure you were just skimming or deleting them, but it feels so good to finally get to talk i just kept going- im so fuckin glad!!! primus! 
> 
> i knew it!!! i knew you were a superspy, i could just tell. god now i want to make it to the end so you can tell me all your spy stories!!! i want to know all the people youve conned, all the rubes youve hoodwinked!!! youre so cool!! aaahhh!!
> 
> thank you thank you thank you for heinrad, i dont even know what to say- i dont know why you even bothered!! if we get out of this i owe you big time. i owe you everything. im going to make you ten thousand funny nicknames i promise. they will all be top notch. like absolute prime stuff. primus now i really want to make it to the end lol!!!! i want to know your name!!! its no fair you get to know mine and i still gotta call you little guy. ah!!! 
> 
> birdy… birdy… its so soft. i dont know if i deserve a name like that. ill take it though, since you gave it to me.
> 
> thank you.


	6. Sixth Circle: Heresy

> hey hey hey buckaroo its birdy time. letter 105. lets do this.
> 
> they came out of the meeting today blablablaing as usual. six and nine never fuckin get along theyre always fighting ugh. one of these days theyre gonna put their dukes up and go at it and i tell ya, i cant wait. six is gonna hand nines aft to him. 
> 
> anyway they were talkin recalls again. nine is all hrrrgh six ur always twistin primuss will to suit ur own agenda and six is all hrrrgh im asserting our power as primus mouthpiece to ensure the power of the state to enforce his will ur just too strict!! and then nine is all your on thin ice buddy bot. and then four is all please please we all are but one, we mustnt let these arguments destroy our will and resolve yadayada. and then they all pout and wander off. its the most exciting thing that happens all week unless star saber has some kind of religious fit. hes been having a lot of those lately tho i think maybe hes finally going crazy for real. maybe ill get lucky and theyll let me put him down. 
> 
> i dunno what they decided about recalling data slugs but theyre definitely talking about it those guys are next. theres a lot of those guys!!! they gotta be a top ten altmode right? i see em fuckin everywhere.
> 
> anyway thats all for this time. keep staying away from star saber seriously a few days ago he threw the janitor in b wing out a window for some reason and its got me paranoid as fuck. he aint fuckin right. glad he doesnt come on this side too often. catch u later dude

Tailgate was out the door before he'd finished reading, scrambling to get to the train station, fighting with his comm system to call Rewind as fast as possible. 

[Overflow? Now isn't a good time. What do you need?]

[I've always wanted to see Rivet's Field at night,] he gasped, their emergency code, [I've never been.]

There was a long, frightened pause. [Okay. I hear it's beautiful. Come over, we can talk about it.]

[Be there soon.]

Tailgate cut his audials and transformed into his alt-mode, spark pulsing _fear-fear-fear_ in his chest. 

He pounded on the door when he arrived, and immediately shoved past Rewind, slamming it shut behind him and grabbing his handler by the wrist, dragging him into the main room.

"Grab whatever you need," Tailgate ordered, "We're bolting. Now." 

"What?!" Rewind gasped, wrenching his arm away. Tailgate was scanning the room, trying to decide for him what might be important.

"Whirl says data slugs are next. We have to go _now,_ Rewind," Tailgate held up the slug Whirl had given him and Rewind snatched it from his fingers, jacking in and reading the letter. His expression hardened. 

"Fuck," he said, finally. 

"Get your _shit_ , Rewind, we have to go _now_ and get a head start. There's less than eight hours until my next shift starts, my absence will be noticed." 

Rewind shook his head, swaying, "No, no, we can't, _you_ can't- you have no idea what they do to you during medical checks, _you_ can't go anywhere without a full sweep for bugs or trackers-"

"Rewind, I _have_ to- if you bolt right before data slugs get recalled and I _don't_ it's going to implicate me anyway. We go separately but we _go._ "

Rewind stepped back and away from him.

"...Gate…" he said, slowly, "do you know how _many_ people we've smuggled out in the last two years _because_ of the work you're doing?"

"Don't do this, Rewind." 

"Thousands, TG," Rewind clenched a hand at his side, " _Tens_ of thousands. The laser pointers would be _extinct_ if you hadn't been up there."

"I know where you're going with this-" Tailgate's voice shook, " _Don't._ "

"You can't stop now," Rewind surged forward and grabbed Tailgate by the shoulders, " _You_ aren't compromised, _I_ am. You have to _stay._ "

"Shut up," Tailgate was shaking, "Don't do this. We've done enough. We can quit."

"Tell that to every data slug who doesn't make it out because we were running instead of warning," Rewind tightened his grip, "It's never just _enough_."

"If you run and I stay then I'm done for. If you're telling me to stay you _know_ that means-"

"It's not just you. It's Dominus. If I vanish, it's implicating _both_ of you. He's _already_ a flathead, they already are suspicious of him, I can't- I can't run."

"Dominus?"

"My Conjunx Endura."

Tailgate gasped. "You have a _what_?!"

"A Conjunx Endura, Tailgate! I have one!" Rewind seemed almost giddy, but the tremors still tainted his speech, "You've never met my owner, but it's all a _con_ ! He's not really a minesweeper- he's actually a minibot, like us, a _beastformer_ of all things, but he's a loadbearer- a _real loadbearer_ \- he's got them totally fooled, Gate-" Rewind took a deep invent, sniffling, "He's just like you. Playing a part to protect other people. He's _my_ handler and when I'm gone you need to get in touch with _him_. He'll find someone new to help you."

"No, Rewind, _no,_ " Tailgate pleaded, visor bright, leaking, desperate. 

"It's okay. I told you I- I told you I knew how this ended. I knew what I was signing up for. What we're doing is bigger than us and we can't just throw it away because we're scared. Everybody _dies_ at the end, Tailgate. I'm lucky I get the chance to say goodbye first."

"That's not lucky at all!" Tailgate grabbed his friend and pulled him against his chest, the both of them shaking, "That's a load of scrap metal! Lucky is _surviving_!" 

"It's going to be okay, Tailgate. You'll be okay without me." 

"Rewind…" 

They sank to the floor.

"I was wrong about him. Not _about_ him, Whirl, I mean- I still think he's a monster but- I was wrong to tell you that. I don't _know_ him. You _do,_ " Rewind took a shuddering invent, steadying himself, "You _hate_ Dominus and you've never met him, but _I_ know him, I know his secrets, I know he's not what he looks like on the surface. I don't know Whirl. But I know _you_. If you think there's something good there- then I have to believe you." 

"Stop talking like you're going to die," Tailgate shook his head, buried in Rewind's shoulder, "We'll come up with something. We will, Rewind, we _will._ "

"Love is the only thing in the universe that matters, TG," Rewind continued, as if Tailgate hadn't spoken at all, "Without love there is no meaning. We're all going to die. Don't do it without having loved somebody." 

"Rewind, you idiot, you are my best friend and I love _you_ ," Tailgate sobbed, and clung to him tighter. 

"I know," said Rewind, voice hoarse with resignation, "I love you, too, Tailgate."

Tailgate pulled away and his hand clutched at his chest, uncertainly. “I don’t know the words, but…”

“I don’t know them either,” Rewind admitted, uncharacteristic for him. He was always the one who knew everything.

Tailgate touched the transformation seams of his chestplate, nervously, uncertain. “Do you think it’s important? Does it not count if they’re wrong?”

“I don’t think the words matter,” Rewind shook his head, “I think the only thing that really matters is if we think it counts.”

Tailgate sniffled, and then nodded, firmly, whirling his chestplate open, the dim blue glow of his spark casting oblong shadows across the room. “The world is full of terrible, horrible things, but you aren’t one of them. I barely know what Amica Endura even means, but I know that Amica are supposed to take care of each other, to the end of the line, and I know you're my best friend, my most important friend, and I would do anything for you. My life will be worse without you."

"I think you say 'today, tomorrow, and always' at the end," Rewind whispered.

"Oh! Oh, okay, I- I promise to care about you, today, tomorrow, and always.”

“Today, tomorrow, and always,” Rewind repeated.

* * *

Tailgate yanked his recharge slab forward and away from the wall, shoving his hand into the hollow compartment he’d made and withdrew the pistol he’d stashed. With any luck, he wouldn't need it, but he was not stupid enough to rely on luck for anything. He checked the firing mechanism, then loaded it and stashed it in his subspace. 

Tailgate had been carefully taking notes on the entire functioning system since he had begun his tenure at The Cog two years prior and hoped dearly that he had gathered enough at this point not to fuck everything up and make Rewind's sacrifice completely pointless. 

For now, he had to work. He had to play it cool. He had not recharged at all and he still had a twelve hour shift in front of him. Six hours in and the Council would have their meeting, during which he knew Whirl recharged outside the meeting chamber, standing up. He'd mentioned it a letter, and Tailgate had filed that information away for a moment like this. 

Tailgate, however, did not have access to the deeper part of The Cog where the chamber was in any capacity. He was assigned to E wing Even if he could sneak his way in, he couldn't be seen. 

Well, they only flash fried the ventilation system once a week. He'd never quite figured out when that was, but at least odds were more likely than not that they weren't full of fire right now. It would have to be enough. 

Halfway through his shift he slunk into the least traveled corner of E wing and kicked in the vent cover. He set it back on behind him as best he could, but he knew it was pretty obviously it had been replaced. He was going to have to be quick and lucky not to get caught. He double checked his map and hoped his assumptions on the vent layout had been accurate as he wriggled through the tunnels in the pitch darkness toward the inner circle of The Cog.

Light peered through a vent cover, finally, and when he pressed his face into the grate, he could see, below him, Whirl, standing the hall, plugged into the wall, optic offline. 

"Whirl!" Tailgate hissed. The mech below him didn't respond. "Whirl!" he tried a little louder. Still nothing. " _Birdy!_ " he tried again.

Whirl's optic flickered online, startled, and his whole posture changed, rearing back as if for a fight, head snapping up. His optic dilated, closed, opened again, startled, before he spun around as if checking the area before he looked up again.

"You!" Whirl said, whispering. 

"I need your help-" Tailgate said, pressed against the grate, "It's- it's my Amica. He's a data slug and I _can't_ get him away- you said, you said in one of your first letters that obchips aren't easy to deactivate- Whirl, as far as I know, they're _impossible_ to deactivate. Were you implying you know _how_ to deactivate an obchip?"

"I- sort of-" Whirl stammered, looking back around himself, nervously, "But I-"

"You were a doctor, right?"

"Barely-"

"But you know _how_? Whirl, I _need_ to know, I can't- it's you and him, Whirl, you are my only friends, I can't lose him."

Whirl stared up at him, shoulders pulling together. "We're friends?" he asked.

Tailgate trembled, wracked by anxiety. "We're gonna start over and meet again, remember, Birdy?" 

Whirl exvented harshly. "I'll drop you a letter tomorrow. You have to get out of here, this is- you can't be here." 

" _Thank you_ ," Tailgate said, sagging, "Primus, I- thank you." He paused, "Before I go, I- Tailgate. My name is Tailgate." 

"Tailgate," Whirl repeated, voice soft, reverent, like a hymn. "Tailgate, you have to _go._ " 

"Thank you," Tailgate said, one last time, and then pushed himself back down the corridor and spent the next twenty minutes getting back to the grate he'd entered through. He unsubspaced his pistol and held it in both hands, venting carefully, before he kicked the grate out again and jumped to his feet, ready to shoot anyone who had seen him.

The hall was empty. He had gotten lucky. 

He stashed the gun again and quickly went about repairing the grate, and prayed to any deity that bothered to listen that he got away with this. 

He felt frenzied the rest of the day, cleaning, like nothing had happened, like nothing had changed. Playing it cool. He felt like he was walking through a throng of sparkeaters, pretending to be one of them, the lingering dead, hungry even in reanimation. He moved his limbs like a blind puppeteer, going through the motions by route without focus, and the following day, finally, he got to check the bin for a letter. 

Two files. How_to_save_your_friend.rar and for_your_optics_only.txt. 

The first contained a detailed set of instructions on how to surgically deactivate an obsolescence chip, along with diagrams, drawings, and gruesome, gorey photos. He stashed it and made a break for the train station, and on the way, read the letter.

> I'm sorry. I've done you a disservice. 
> 
> You have a beautiful name. It means following too closely. Being too close to people. People like me. 
> 
> I've been alone for so long, in here, that I let my excitement to have someone listen to me again overwhelm my good judgement. I've selfishly let you think I'm someone I'm not, and I've let you take risks you shouldn't have.
> 
> I am not a good person. I probably never was. I don't have any delusions about that. I am a bad person who knows that, and all I want now is the opportunity to die doing something good, and hope that maybe that will be good enough. I don't have the right to die without trying to atone, first, at least. That's what this is about. That's what this is. It's about me dying knowing I wasn't all bad. I knew when I got into this that it only ends one way and it's me, dead. It doesn't _have_ to be both of us- it will probably be both of us, but it's going to be me. I'm okay with that. I deserve that. You _don't._ You aren't _like_ me. You're not doing this for absolution. You're doing it because it's the right thing to do. You are a _hero_. You are _my_ hero.
> 
> The information in the rar was not obtained easily or ethically. I have done things that now, nearing the end of my life, I am ashamed to admit, to you, especially, who thinks I am someone I wish I was. I am as great a sinner as anyone else here. I can't indulge the fantasy where we start over anymore, not when it's pushing you to take more and more risks. The dream ends now. I am a sinking ship and will not take you down with me. I hope you will forgive me. I hope your Amica survives.
> 
> This is my last letter. From now on, I am passing on what's important, and that's it. I have to protect you. 
> 
> I'm sorry. 

Tailgate thunked his head back against the seat on the train, fighting the tears in his optics, furious, frustrated, grief stricken, torn between six hundred conflicting emotions that all synchronized dead in the center on _regret_ and made his tanks twist and roil in misery. 

He met Dominus Ambus for the first time at their shared habblock, and held Rewind's hand while the loadbearer cracked his Conjunx's skull open and followed the instructions on the rar to deactivate his obsolescence chip. At the end of it, Rewind was alive, and Tailgate had what he wanted. 


	7. Seventh Circle: Violence

The next time that Whirl saw Tailgate, it was only for a moment, passing him in the hall. He didn't need more than a glance, however, to see the sad tilt of his visor, the light dull and longing. He didn't look back at him. Whirl only hoped that those sad optics were just for him, and not because he hadn't been able to save his friend after all. 

He followed Four into the commissary, staring blankly forward as the bastard picked up his daily rations. Whirl nearly forgot to grab a can of phos, tanks still churning, but he knew he had to keep up appearances. 

He'd gone and bungled it all up, in the end. Two years of this and he'd forgotten why he was doing it in the first place. He was supposed to know what he was by now. 

Whirl's thoughts drifted away from him, to other times and other places, to faces he hadn't bothered to memorize before he beat them to a pulp, to Senate doors torn open and corpses on the floor, to his claws around leaker's throats. He had wasted his life, and it had not been a short one. 

And then there was _Tailgate._

He wanted to think that he was a fool for believing Whirl was not as bad as he had been led to believe, but he couldn't bring himself to think the little mech was foolish. Whirl watched him, whenever he could, and he could see, when he was searching, the careful way his little spy friend watched _everything._ He was always perceiving, notating, _remembering_. Tailgate was _sharp_. Tailgate was clearly a pro. He was not a fool. 

That didn't mean he was right, though. Whirl wanted to believe there was something good left in himself- that was the whole point of all of this, after all, wanting to believe that, to hold it like he held nothing else and die knowing that he had _tried_. At the same time, maybe he'd been too quick to sweep aside all about him that was _bad_ and let Tailgate believe that there was so much more good in him than there really was. 

Four rose from his seat and Whirl tossed his can of Phos in the bin by the corner. He followed like a zombie, like a pet on an invisible leash, optic fuzzy, the world a spinning glass around him, barely comprehensible in its shapes and colours. Moments spun into minutes into hours and back into seconds again, leaving the world a hazy visage of incongruity. He wasn't completely sure when or where he was, moving on route without instruction. 

His mind didn't string itself back together until they passed through E wing again and he got to see him. He was going over the walls, working out the dust. He did that a lot. This place was absurdly dusty. Whirl had noticed he usually rotated through the week, one day on the floors and then the next on the walls. He wondered how he reached the higher parts of the walls, because he never saw him with a ladder, but they were never dirty. 

Whirl had gotten attached. He'd been playing all of this like a game, like the stakes were so high that they ceased to matter, like this brave stranger had showed up for him and not for the people that he was supposed to be absolving himself to. 

And even still, as they passed in the hall Whirl felt his spark roil and long and _yearn_ , wanting desperately to just kick Four out a window, grab the little guy and _run_. A stupid, naive impulse he didn't act on. 

He turned the corner and ignored the sinking in his chest, the full body ache that radiated out from his core, pleading with him to turn around, to give into impulse. Whirl was stronger than that, though, had been denying himself for millenia, and not even his spark could overwhelm his resolve. He would do his best to keep Tailgate from going down with him, do his best to mitigate the damage. He had to. 

Sleep came easily to him when the eyeballs went into their meeting the next day. The darkness was a welcome reprieve from his own grim anxieties, bringing the only kind of solace he knew how to find comfort in. 

He woke blinking, feeling restless still, as the doors to the center chamber swished open. Six stormed past him, fuming and frustrated and Whirl immediately shook himself awake, excited for another argument.

“You are _not_ God, Six!” yelled Nine, following him out, pointing an accusing finger at the other council member, “Stop acting like it.”

“You would do well to know your place, Nine-of-Twelve,” Six said, without turning around, “We are not enemies.”

“I would remind you of the same,” Nine hissed, sounding furious, “I will not tolerate your blasphemy forever.”

“Then don’t,” said Six, with an air of finality, and he resumed walking, leaving the rest of them behind. Whirl felt a little disappointed the argument hadn’t escalated any further. He watched as Nine shook his head, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. Four emerged behind him, looking reserved.

“You must learn to compromise, Nine-of-Twelve,” said Four, passively, but with an undercurrent of threat that Whirl didn’t miss. Apparently he was siding with Six on whatever they were arguing about. “The data slugs will not be missed. We call them disposable for a reason, you know. Such arguments do no one any favours. Especially when it comes to… other things.”

“...Right,” said Nine, glancing back at Four, before he, too, resumed walking and left. Four waved Whirl over to follow him, folding his hands behind his back before he did.

“What do you think of Nine?” Four asked him, after they had been walking for a bit. Whirl blinked, caught off guard. It wasn’t especially often that he was addressed directly and for a moment he thought that Four might be speaking to someone else.

“He gets in too many arguments with Six,” Whirl said, treading carefully, “He’s walking on thin ice.”

“Hm. Apt,” Four commented, without looking back at him.

“...Do we have a problem with Nine, boss?”

“Not yet,” said Four, “But keep your eye on him.”

“Yes, sir.”

They passed into the commissary, routine reestablished. Four filled a cube. Whirl grabbed a can. His focus left him again, the patterns on the walls shifting and transforming, becoming mockeries of skyscrapers that boxed him into cities and blotted out the sky. 

"How do you feel about Star Saber as your replacement?" Four asked him, staring at his datapad. 

"I don't know," Whirl responded, "I don't keep up with his work. You keep me busy." 

"Fair," Four said, sipping his fuel, "What do you think of him in general, then?" 

"He threw a janitor out a window last week."

"Mm, yes, I think I remember that," Four hummed, "How did you feel about that?" 

"It's a security risk, sir," Whirl responded, staring at a strange blob in his vision, a shifting piece of wall that was beginning to look like Kroma if he squinted, "The window needed to be repaired, the janitor had to be tracked down. Anyone could have found him glitched out of his mind streetside from the fall."

"I thought they repaired it?" 

"I wouldn't know," Whirl lied. 

Four sipped his fuel again. "It's still in hospital. Terrific waste if it had died, replacing alt mode exalted drones is such tedious work. Removing cogs from the system makes the whole piece less functional."

"Makes sense, sir."

"...Do you think you could kill Star Saber, if I asked you to?" Four asked, casually. 

"Yes," said Whirl, without hesitation. 

Four chuckled. "You've already thought about it, then." 

"He's unstable, sir. I have considered your safety."

"I think you were right to do so. We may have to do something about him, in time." 

"Whenever you ask, sir." 

"I'll let you know, Whirl," said Four, tabbing to another page on his datapad. Whirl finished his can and crossed the room, sliding in the data slug from his wrist and dropping it into the bin. He returned to standing behind Four. 

"In any case, I'm not the only one who's become frustrated by Star Saber's increasing incidents, though we are not unanimous in our concern. Six, of course, is still his adamant supporter. It could be some time before we have to do anything about him," Four continued, finishing his cube and setting it to the side. "But we've rolled out a new upgrade to the drones during their last medical check to keep a closer eye on him."

"You didn't tell me I was getting any upgrades, sir," Whirl said, staring at the can across the room.

"No, no, not you, I don't want them watching _me_ through you," Four scoffed, and stood. Whirl picked up his trash behind him. "The dregs, only. We've already had it done to staff here and to the returning Primal Vanguard, though I'd like to see it roll out standard soon." 

"Mmhm?" Whirl hummed, following Four as he moved toward the exit. Whirl tossed the empty cube in the trash receptacle. They turned the corner into E wing.

"You'll like this," Four chuckled. Whirl was distracted, staring at the minibot in the hallway, scrubbing the floor, "It was Two's idea. ' _You are our eyes,_ ' literally. We've installed cameras in their optics." 

Whirl's fuel ran cold. 

Ahead of him, Tailgate looked up, past him, toward the door to the commissary, and beyond that, the trash can, his hidden data slug. 

"That's standard for staff?" Whirl asked, intake dry, "Like, all the cleaners?" 

"Yes," Four confirmed, "I'd rather like footage of Star Saber's next incident. I'm sure there will be one."

Tailgate rose to his feet and the world snapped into perfect clarity. 

The minibot spy continued down the hall and into the commissary, checking the bin for his illicit communication. He held it in his hands and the camera in his visor betrayed him. _They_ watched from behind his eyes and then they came for him, dragging him down the hall, kicking and screaming. They rigged him up to one of those wretched things they kept the useless one in, and they tortured him, for hours, days, years, perhaps, until they got every rebel name and location from him they could. Inch by inch they broke him until he was unrecognizable, until he knew nothing but regret, not even his own, beautiful name. 

The world rewound back. Tailgate left for the commissary and the bin and his betrayal and Whirl tripped him, shook his head, warned him of the danger. Behind his eyes _they_ were watching and they _knew_. The outcome stayed the same. 

The world rewound back. Tailgate left for the commissary and Whirl grabbed Four's skull and wrenched it from his shoulders, and then he grabbed Tailgate and made a run for it. He never even made it to the shuttle bay before the guards overwhelmed him. The outcome stayed the same. 

He had to stop him from checking the bin. He had to stop him from betraying himself. If Whirl warned him, if he gave any indication he _knew_ him, the jig would be up, they would _know_ something was off. Even if Whirl stopped him from checking the bin, if Tailgate went back to his hab that evening and called a rebel friend? That would be it. The outcome would come. Tailgate needed his optics debugged. Tailgate needed to get out of here. Tailgate needed to be _removed_ from this place, now, needed an excuse to be _gone._

Whirl considered the B wing janitor, laying in a hospital in Iacon, waiting on his repairs to be completed, excused from work. Not being horribly tortured. 

The world rewound. Tailgate stood up and began walking toward the commissary. Whirl altered his course and intentionally tripped over the little minibot, just like he had, a long time ago, in a fuzzy memory, and righted himself, grabbing him by the throat one more time and slamming him against the wall. 

"Watch where you're standing, trashcan," Whirl snarled, and for once, he was grateful to his simple vocalizer. It simply could not convey the tremble he felt otherwise would be present in his voice, could not give form to the sudden grief and panic rising in his throat and up his fuel lines like ice. Tailgate's visor brightened and widened its display in fear, real fear, of _him_. Rightfully earned.

Tailgate's fingers scrabbled at Whirl's claws around his neck, claws that had never and would never touch him gently or kindly. Claws that could never hold him the way he deserved to be held. Whirl was not soft, not tender, not tame. He was a wild thing on a leash, fury given form, and the only gift he had to give was violence. Tailgate's legs kicked at the wall, trying to get leverage to push himself up, relieve pressure, escape. The world wound and rewound again in agonizing clarity, a hundred different alternate paths and all of them led to ruin, to Tailgate sinking, his tiny spark snuffed before his time. 

Whirl was not entirely certain if he was able to love anyone or anything, not in a real way, not like a normal person. But when Tailgate's visor flickered and he croaked out a desperate, "Bir-" Whirl knew that there was no choice to make. This was the last time he was ever going to see his favourite person on this wretched planet, so he hoped he could hang onto the memory of his face, tried to focus on the shapes, make them clear and defined, not warbled and vague like everything always felt. 

And then he made the choice between his love or his life, a choice that didn't even take consideration. Whirl drew back his arm, and then surged forward, fist shattering Tailgate's visor and Whirl's spark along with it.


	8. Eighth Circle: Fraud

Whirl's fist surged into Tailgate's face and shattered his visor and with it his spark. The pain bloomed like ink in water, an eruption of molten lava that whited out his visual feed so bright it hurt, thought that part mercifully only lasted a few seconds, before the darkness overwhelmed him.

He wasn't sure what he'd done wrong. 

Tailgate had been certain he knew him. It had only been two years, but it had been an _important_ two years and every week of those years Whirl had left him a note, and every note had been brimming with his thoughts and feelings, written in a stream of consciousness way that seemed so genuine. Tailgate had been sure he _knew_ him, by now, certain he _understood_ him, but now he was floating in pitch black, surrounded by the fractured shards of his awareness, coming in and out of it like he was drowning. A totally organic concept that seemed so normal to him suddenly, trying to keep his head above water.

"What did I _just_ tell you?" said a distant voice, skewed sideways, but if someone answered Tailgate didn't catch it, too busy listening to the echoing ring in his audials before that, too, was lost to him. 

Tailgate woke to ticking, like a clock, repeating in a monotone that made counting the ticks impossible, surging into one another like waves on the shore of the sea of rust, an echo chamber of time he could no more comprehend than he could focus on. His chronometer told him it was an hour before he put two and two together and realized the ticking synced up to his spark pulse- something he only just realized he had, which meant he wasn't dead after all. That was good news, at least, if nothing else was.

He waited a bit more for his optics to come back online and tell him where he was, but they didn't. Irritated, he force started his visual feed and it flickered static, flashes of colour, the kind that hurt to look at and he quickly shut it down again, wiggling a hand and then reaching up to paw at his visor and figure out the problem. 

He didn't have one. 

Tailgate wrenched his hand away again when his sensornet lit up with pain at contact to the exposed inner workings, sensitive and delicate and _not_ meant to be touched. It took longer than he wanted to admit of clenching his fist and panting for the pain to dim enough again for him to focus. 

Okay. So he was blind. That was new.

He refocused. There was a ticking synced to his spark pulse. He'd just gotten hit hard enough to shatter his optics and throw him offline. Logically he had to assume he was somewhere medical, and a cursory pat down his chest revealed some cables that weren't his, so definitely somewhere medical. He'd just pawed at wires and his bare optic nerves so, either no one else was in the room, or anyone in the room was kind of a jerk. More likely the former. If someone was watching him _and_ didn't care if he put a hand right in an injury, they would probably also have him in stasis cuffs.

On that note, he wasn't sure why he _wasn't_ in stasis cuffs. Why he was alive at all, honestly. Was he caught or wasn't he? His memory shorted out in harsh bursts toward the end, fragmented, difficult to focus on. Whirl had hit him, for sure, but he didn't know why.

Tailgate checked his comm system and found it functional. He sat up and let his head spin for a moment, and then commed Rewind.

Silence.

He groaned and shook his head again, clearing away the last vestiges of unconsciousness.

"Hello?" he asked, "Is anyone there?"

Silence.

"Alright, then," he sighed, and gave himself a once over, wriggling his pedes and patting down his arms. He wasn't too bad off, after all, he'd mostly just taken the blow to the head, it seemed like. Noted.

Tailgate swung his legs over the side of the berth, and nearly hopped down, before thinking better of it, since he didn't actually know how high up he was, and rolled over so he could lower himself down to his feet. Tile. He gave an experimental stomp and listened to the sound it made. A quiet, tinny echo- probably a small room, and the reverberation made him think he probably wasn't on a ground floor, or at least, there was a floor below this one. Probably the hospital in Iacon, if he had to guess. Didn't seem like he had a roommate, at least. 

The wires in his chest tugged him back when he moved further from the berth to keep investigating, and he considered ripping them out, it didn't seem like they were anything but diagnostic, but then someone might come check on him. Primus, he wished he could call his handler.

He brightened, remembering Rewind had given him Dominus's frequency- he tried that instead, and then remembered he was a flathead- no vocalizer. He cut the call and sent him a text message instead. 

[It's Overflow. Please respond.]

[Hello]

Tailgate clapped his hands. Yes! Now there was something good. Dominus sent him back a ping and Tailgate responded, swivelling his head in the direction the location ping oriented him to.

[Where's Rewind? What happened?]

[Stay]

I think I'm in the hospital. My memory is a little blurry. My optics are broken.]

[Stay]

Tailgate huffed, frustrated by the bizarrely short responses. 

[Are you coming? Here?]

[Stay]

Tailgate groaned, paced, and then crawled back into the berth to pretend to be asleep in case anyone else came in to check on him. 

He hoped Whirl was alright. He didn't know what was going on, but something wasn't adding up. He'd hit him hard enough to knock him offline and then stopped. That's not what you do if you want to hurt somebody. That's what you do if you need them unconscious. Tailgate didn't know what the game was, didn't know what puzzle piece he was missing that would bring clarity to his predicament, but the more he thought about it, the more confident he was that he _did_ know Whirl, and Whirl must know something he didn't.

He had to hope so, at least. 

* * *

A hand on his shoulder shook him from recharge and Tailgate sat up straight, coming back into consciousness with a jolt of alarm. 

"What are-" he began, but a hand covered his mouthplate. It didn't stop him from talking, that's not where his voice box was, but the message was clear. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Who are you?"

A hand grabbed his wrist and put his palm against the screen of their face- a flathead. _Dominus_. His handler's Conjunx twisted his hand around to weave their fingers together, chirolinguistics style.

"I don't speak hand," Tailgate shook his head, "I don't have the sensors for it." 

Dominus kept moving his hand, some unreadable sign Tailgate didn't know. He pulled his hand away.

"Just DM me," Tailgate insisted.

Dominus didn't acknowledge the request, grabbing again at his wrist.

[What's the problem?] Tailgate messaged him, confused. 

[Go] Dominus responded.

[Where are we going? What's the plan? Where's Rewind?]

[Go]

Something was wrong. 

"Go?" Tailgate asked, hesitantly. 

Dominus moved Tailgate's hand over his own chest. [You] he DMed, then moved Tailgate's hand toward himself, [Me] and then squeezed his wrist. [Go]

Hesitantly, Tailgate nodded, then threw his legs over the side of the berth and hopped down with confidence. Dominus grabbed him again by the hand, and with that, Tailgate yanked the wires from his chest. 

Tailgate tried to focus on the sounds, parse them into information- movement, wheels, computer terminals, echoing, distant crying- definitely the hospital. 

"Hey-" an unfamiliar voice said behind him, "Where are you going?"

"Uh, cafeteria," Tailgate answered, tilting his faceplate up toward where he thought Dominus's screen probably was. 

He could hardly believe that worked. He wasn't sure where they were going after that, following Dominus's silent lead, until he heard a door open and the distinct echo of a stairwell. Oh, he was so not feeling stairs right now. 

Tailgate was a bit hesitant on the steps, still blind, enough so that after a bit of impatient foot tapping, Dominus simply picked him up and carried him the rest of the way, though he wasn't complaining. Halfway down they encountered someone else, but this time Tailgate didn't have the opportunity to fib poorly. Dominus shifted his hold and fired an ion pistol and Tailgate heard the stranger collapse, and then Dominus started taking stairs three at a time.

After that things got a little muddled- the lobby? A back room? Then they were outside, but not on the street, and then he didn't quite know where he was until he was knocking rapidly on a door, and then they were in a cab or something, definitely a non-sentient vehicle, and then, finally, he was in an elevator.

When the elevator doors opened he heard a familiar voice again, finally. 

"Holy smokes- Tailgate!" 

"Drift?" Tailgate asked, a little uncertainly, "Is that you?" 

"You look terrible," the other mech said, voice getting louder with his approach, "Are you blind?" 

"Looks like," Tailgate confirmed, "Where am I? Dominus brought me here but he won't or can't say what's going on." 

"This is an old tantalum mine outside of Kalis, I'm on guard shift- hang on, I speak hand, let me just-" 

Dominus's hand left Tailgate's, finally, and he waited in darkness and silence, uncertain and anxious. 

"What's he saying?" Tailgate asked, eventually. 

"He's… let me call Howlback to come get you. I have to hold my post." 

Tailgate was even more frustrated now. First Dominus was keeping mum and now Drift _could_ talk and _wouldn't_. A few minutes later he heard the approach of a beastformer's quiet pedes on the stone ground. 

"Come with me," she said, "You can hold my tail. Anode wants to talk to you first." 

"Fine," Tailgate snapped, and reached blindly for her tail, before she brushed it against his palm.

She was easier to follow than Dominus had been, warning him when she was turning or when the ground bevelled and dipped precariously, but after enough turns through labyrinthian caverns, he heard voices again.

"Oh, Primus, Dominus…" Lug gasped, and the room was swept by a hush, going silent. "I am so sorry." 

"Hey," said Tailgate, testily, "I'm blind and I just woke up from getting the awake punched out of me. Can someone please tell me what's going on?!" 

"Airshock, check him," said Anode's voice, and Tailgate jolted when they grabbed at his head. He hadn't even heard them come up behind him and he jerked away.

"Shhht, shh, it's fine, it's just me," Airshock's voice attempted to reassure him, poking and prodding at his tender broken optics. "Deactivated. No feed. He's clean."

"Good. If he hadn't been we would have been fucked, Dominus, what were you _thinking_ bringing him here? Why would you-" she stopped talking. "Oh, god. What _have_ they done to you?"

"He speaks hand," Tailgate supplied. 

"Right," said Anode, approaching. More silence, Tailgate's favourite new thing. 

"Well?" he prompted.

"...It's…" she started, sounding unsettled, "You've been compromised."

"How? What happened?" 

"You've got a camera in your noggin," Airshock said, and Tailgate jumped again at how close they were, "It's broken now, but the pieces are still there." 

"In my- my noggin?"

"In your optics."

Tailgate felt a flash of memory, his visor shattering before he could finish a word. He shuddered. "Where is Rewind?"

Anode didn't answer.

"Anode," Tailgate said, again, " _Where_ is Rewind?" 

"...I'm sorry, Tailgate," she said, her voice thick, "He's gone."

The world shook. The ground trembled. "What do you mean _gone_?"

"He's dead," she clarified, the room deathly quiet, "They blew his obchip."

"That's not- that can't- _no_!" Tailgate yelled, stumbling backward, "We deactivated it!" 

"It must not have taken-" she paused, "or there was a backup. Dominus says he collapsed in his arms. He watched him go grey."

"No-" Tailgate took another step back, right into Airshock, who caught him, legs shaking, "No, no, _no…_ "

"God, Minimus, too?" Anode murmured, sounding horrified. Tailgate didn't even know that name. Rewind, though, Rewind, _Rewind…_

"We have to get Whirl," Tailgate said, leaning a little more heavily on the medic than he wanted, the world feeling like it was starting to spin, "If Rewind's compromised and I'm a runner, they're going to _know_ , they're going to _realize_ that he's- we have to _rescue_ him."

"We can't," she answered, voice soft. 

"We have to!" Tailgate insisted, "They're- they'll kill him for sure."

"He knew what he was getting into," she reminded him, "He knew he was going to die at the end. You're _lucky_ you got out."

"I didn't _get out_ , he _got me out_! He must have known about the optics- he-" Tailgate collapsed to his knees, leaning forward, one hand reaching toward where his visor used to be. "He got me out. We have to go back for Whirl." 

Anode knelt down in front of him, taking his hand in hers. "Tailgate," she said, voice cracking, "We _can't._ "

Tailgate gasped, vents flared, trying to remember how to cycle air as the world spun out of control. His Amica was dead. Whirl was- Whirl was- _Whirl was-_

What even _was_ Whirl to him? Collaborator? Friend? Rewind had been right about that he'd done all but proffered and disclosed, but they'd never done the _first_ act, never started it, never talked about it, the only time Whirl had ever touched him had been to hurt him- he didn't know what counted, he didn't know what _Whirl_ thought counted, didn't know how he felt, if he'd ruined everything, if it was all too late-

"Rewind," Tailgate sobbed, busted optics stinging painfully as lubricant welled up around their edges, "God, _Rewind._ " 

"I'm sorry," Anode told him.

"It's not fair!" Tailgate yelled, throwing his head up, tears spilling over his mask, "Rewind has never done anything wrong in his life! Whirl _has_ but he's- he's ready to be better and he's never going to get the chance, it's not _fair_ -" he clenched his hands into fists against the ground, shoulders shaking, "He doesn't even know I _know_ , he doesn't even know I-" 

"General!" 

"Not now," Anode hissed. 

"General, you _really_ want to see this."

"What is it?!" she snapped.

Tailgate looked up, orienting toward the viz screen he heard coming on. 

"-to my words," Nine's voice began, staticcy but identifiable, "You have been _betrayed_ by your Council. Six-of-Twelve has led the rest down a path of blasphemy I will no longer follow. You have been lied to, you have been led astray, and this, today, is your call to action, to throw off the shackles of your oppressors and free yourselves once more, to live as Cybertronians were meant to!"

"What the _fuck?"_ balked Anode, "He can't be serious." 

"Six-of-Twelve has just led a successful vote to use the matrix-bled sparks, the bastards of your former Prime to create a new era of knock offs. This must not come to pass. The council is planning on replacing your optics with an upgrade that will allow them to watch what you see. Do not let them do this to-"

"Nine!" said a new voice that Tailgate recognized as Four's, which meant-

"Is Whirl there?!" he gasped.

"Yeah," Anode said, barely a breath. 

"I knew you were an instigator, but not a _traitor_ ," Four spat. 

"We are _all_ traitors, Four, but I have allowed you to blind me to the truth long enough. I won't play along anymore. The game is over."

"As if you even knew the rules," Four scoffed.

"Kill me, then, coward! Do it!" A beat. "Do it!" 

"I'd say that it's been a pleasure, but, actually, it's-" 

There was a horrible shriek of metal and agony, and a gasp rippled through the room.

"What?!" Tailgate pleaded, "What just happened?!" 

"He just- Whirl just ripped Four's head off," Anode whispered, horrified.

"He _what?!_ "

"You think you got the right to die yet?" Whirl's voice cut straight through Tailgate's chest, tearing him open, "After everything you've done? Think again." 

"Whirl," Tailgate sobbed, standing, stumbling toward a viz screen he could not see, as the world spun topsy turvy in the black, "Birdy, _please_."


	9. Ninth Circle: Treachery

Time moved perpendicular, like the sea crashing into the shore, and between the two lived Whirl, drifting aimlessly, some leiline thing of brine and bone. The tenth circle. 

He didn't know what he was talking about. 

"What did I _just_ tell you?" Four's voice was a rolling wave, distant and too close, deep and dark and brimming with enemies. He let go of Tailgate and let the minibot slump to the floor, head cocked forward, glass shards tinkling past his mouth plate. 

"Sorry, boss," a voice answered him, but Whirl wasn't sure whose. 

"Security, I need you to come by E wing and take one of the cleaners back down planetside, Whirl's broken the wretched thing." 

Whirl had broken the wretched thing. 

He looked back up at Four, vision skewing blue-brown, and waited for the colours to settle again and stay in the lines, before he shook the energon from his fist and stepped back and away.

"I've gone to great lengths to civilize you," Four tilted his head upward, looking down at him despite his height, "I grow weary of these incidents. Come, we have places to be."

"The cleaner," Whirl said, staring at what he'd done.

"Leave it _be_ , Whirl, all it did was get in the _way,_ " Four groaned, "We have better things to do than go through janitors like rust sticks." Four beckoned him follow and Whirl's feet moved, optic staring back behind him. Too much? Enough? 

He stared at the floor, focusing on the sound of their footsteps, tat-tat-brrat-brrat on the tile floor, asynchronous and warped, the straight lines grooved into the ground twisting and spiralling into a mockery of faces, mouths moving silently as they told him all the other choices he had and didn't take in some language he didn't speak. 

Whirl had once possessed an impeccable sense of time. Not just in that his chronometer was perfect, but that he could _feel_ time passing with perfect clarity, could always sense it move around him. It had been a very, very long time since then.

Now time felt like a stranger, an enemy he could not comprehend or fight. It slowed and sped and stopped on a whim, leaving him going between idle, staring vacantly at the warbling shapes the walls would become when he stared long enough, and tense, hyperfocused, while things seemed to move in super speed, trying to unsettle him. It was all he could do to keep it together when Four met with Star Saber. Stare forward. Focus on the shapes. 

A week ago he would have been listening to this conversation, intently, focused, trying to remember what was said. Today it didn't matter. He would funnel no more secrets to Tailgate. No more secrets to anyone. The optic cameras made certain of that. His spy days were behind him. 

He had to make a choice what to do with the days in front of him.

"What do you want to do with them?" Tailgate asked, following along behind, like his own tiny bodyguard, as he trailed Four through the halls again. 

"I don't know," Whirl told him, truthfully, "Something good, I suppose."

"What?" asked Four, tilting his head back.

"Is living not good enough?" Tailgate asked, crossing his arms behind his back. He had to walk rapidly to keep up with them because his legs were so short, making tick-tick-tick-tick footsteps beside his own brrat-brrat. He was caught in some unfathomable middle between irrevocably cute and deviously business-like. 

"Is surviving _living_ , though?" Whirl responded, " _Is_ it good enough?"

"I can't decide that for you," Tailgate shook his head, sadly, "You need to make your own decisions." 

"Are you talking to yourself again?" Four halted and Whirl looked up.

"No," he said, blinking. 

"Ugh," Four groaned, turning away again, "Please be quiet."

"Yes, sir." 

"That's a bit harsh," Tailgate admonished, "You said, like, fifteen words." 

Whirl nodded, silently.

"You've been doing this a long time," Tailgate said, keeping pace, "Maybe it's time to quit. Let's look at your options. You can live, or you can die. Now, you're pretty good at living, that's what you've been doing so far. So if you want to keep living, you need to keep doing what you're doing. You stay the bad guy."

Whirl nodded.

"But if you're willing to die, your options do expand. You're in a good position to actually do something that matters in exchange for your life, you know. You could wait for their next meeting and go down fighting, at least. Maybe kill One, or Six. Maybe even Twelve? Those would be good options." 

Whirl nodded. 

Tailgate adjusted his seat, crossing his arms on the table, and Whirl tilted the can of Phos in his claws, uncertain where it had come from or how long he had been staring at it. He didn't have anything to hide in it today. 

"So, you can probably take at least a couple of them down, before Star Saber rolls in, and you're dead. You know you can't take Star Saber," Tailgate tapped his mask in thought, "Would that really be so bad?"

Whirl hesitated. 

Tailgate tilted his head at him. "I thought that's what this was all about? Dying knowing there was still some good in you. Do you mean to say you don't want to die after all?" 

Whirl stared at the floor. 

"I knew you couldn't do it," Kroma laughed, "You never could."

"Leave him alone," Tailgate snapped, "Of course he's afraid to die."

"I'm not afraid to die," Whirl said.

"Right," said Four, dryly, "That's nice, Whirl. Pay attention for a moment. Where are we?" 

Whirl blinked at him, focused his optic on his keeper and the chamber doors behind him. "It's meeting time," he answered. 

"Oh, good, you're still with me after all. You've been even more vacant than usual the past few days. Are you experiencing any medical problems I should know about?"

"Not to my knowledge, sir." 

"Right, well," Four glanced him up and down, "Remind me to have you checked later, anyway."

"Yes, sir." 

The doors opened. Four vanished. Whirl looked at the recharging outlet in the wall, then turned away. 

"You have to make a decision, you know," Shockwave told him, leaning against the far wall.

"I'm not great at those," Whirl admitted. 

"You've made decisions before."

"Mostly bad ones," Whirl paused, "I shouldn't have killed you, I think." 

"I have a biased opinion on the matter," the Senator sighed, "But I must unfortunately agree."

"At the time it felt like, no matter how bad these Functionist fellas are, it's not like they could be worse than the _Senate_. Not after the things _you all_ did." 

"I hardly had a hand in that side of things," Shockwave reminded him, "You should be talking to someone else if that's what you want to talk about."

"I don't like talking to the others," Whirl muttered.

"Focus on something real, Whirl. You've lived a long time. You've done a lot of things you regret. You're still alive, and you still have the chance to do something good with your life." Shockwave stood up, leaning away from the wall with a shrug, "Make a decision: What are you going to fight for?" 

Whirl was alone. 

That was Whirl's absolute zero sum least favourite status of being. He huffed a sigh that echoed off the walls. He missed Tailgate. His spark twisted in his chest, ragged edges aching. He probably hated him now. He wasn't even wrong to do so. 

The chamber doors slammed open, and Nine went running down the hall like a mech possessed. 

"Dammit, Whirl, stop him!"

Whirl blinked. He stared at his keeper absently, lost more in thought regarding his own problems than whatever this was.

"Dammit, _Nine_ , stop!" Four yelled down the hall, and then turned back to Whirl and shoved him. "Go!"

Mindlessly, Whirl transformed and shot down the hall after him, switching back to his root mode mid air and landing on his pedes hard enough to leave awful dark skid marks that made him wince in pity for the A wing cleaner. 

Whirl turned and looked at Nine, who had ducked into the broadcast room, turning on the equipment and beginning a stream.

"Citizens of Cybertron, listen to my words. You have been betrayed by your Council. Six-of-Twelve has led the rest down a path of blasphemy I will no longer follow," Nine leaned forward into the camera, speaking with a ferver like he expected Whirl to come to his senses and shoot him at any moment.

Whirl eyed him curiously. This wasn't a room he got to see very often, Four was the mediator, so he mostly dealt with inter council issues. Making these kinds of live feeds was not really his area. Whirl, knew, however, from history, whatever was in front of that camera was going to be on every viz screen on Cybertron. 

"You have been lied to, you have been led astray, and this, today, is your call to action, to throw off the shackles of your oppressors and free yourselves once more, to live as Cybertronians were meant to!" Nine gestured wildly, losing himself in his speech, "Six-of-Twelve has just led a successful vote to use the matrix-bled sparks, the bastards of your former Prime to create a new era of knock offs. This must not come to pass."

"Whirl!" Four caught up with him, "I told you to _stop him_ , what are you _doing?!_ "

Whirl stared at him, optic unblinking, silent. 

"Primus' mercy, you've finally broken," Four cried, exasperated, and pushed him away, striding into the broadcast center.

"The council is planning on replacing your optics with an upgrade that will allow them to watch what you see. Do not let them do this to-"

"Nine!" Four yelled, pointing an accusing finger at the other council member, "I knew you were an instigator, but not a traitor."

"We are all traitors, Four, but I have allowed you to blind me to the truth long enough," Nine looked away from the camera, back towards Four standing in the doorway, "I won't play along anymore. The game is over."

"As if you even knew the rules," Four scoffed. Whirl tilted his head at him, processing the conversation slowly. Knock offs, optic cameras, games, truth- it was all a bit much to keep up with.

"Kill me, then, coward! Do it!" Nine shook, looking, for the first time Whirl had seen any of the eyeballs, frightened, as Four drew a miniature ion blaster from his subspace and pointed it at him, "Do it!" 

Whirl's optic dilated, focusing on the weapon, in thought, and then back at its target. Nine was not a mech Whirl knew particularly well, but he knew Six and Four hated him, and that was always a good thing. Turning on the council was good. 

Whirl considered his options.

There wasn't much left for him. He knew he was going to die at the end and there was nothing he could do about it. It was an inevitability. He had played his hand, dealt his cards, and the jig was up. Either Tailgate would out himself or do a runner and both outcomes would implicate him in his activities when they started looking closer. He was a dead mech walking, with little more he could do with his life that would matter before he lost it- unless it had all been a farce, some comforting mid-life crisis of faith to convince himself he wasn't a complete monster. 

Live, or die? 

"I'd say that it's been a pleasure, but, actually, it's-" Whirl wrapped his claws around Four's head and wrenched it from his neck with a shriek of agony that cut short before it ever got started, energon and sparks spraying wild. The body wavered and crumpled to its knees and Whirl dropped the head on the ground, turning his attention toward Nine. 

"You think you got the right to die yet?" Whirl snarled, "After everything you've done? Think again."

"I- excuse me?" Nine faltered, stepping backwards, staring at him in shock.

"You heard me, eyeball," Whirl growled, "Dying heroically? That's the easy way out. You don't deserve that. You and I have ruined this world and you don't get to die a martyr now." Whirl stomped on Four's arm to hold it down and tore the ion pistol from his clenched fingers, " _Do_ something with your life, you wretched thing." 

"Like _what?!_ " Nine balked. 

"Get creative! _Save_ people! You wanna know something, lantern-face?" Whirl felt giddy, gleeful, "I've been funnelling every secret Four told me to the rebellion for the last two years! I've warned them about every single goddamn recall! Did you suspect a thing? Did you ever think stupid, brainless, sparkless Whirl would betray you? I did! I did, again and again and again, because there's better people out there than us and I owe it to them, and so do _you_!" 

Whirl shoved him and Nine stumbled back, optic wide, unblinking, in disbelief. 

" _You_? You're the _leak?!_ " 

"Oh my god, you knew there was a leak and _still_ didn't think it was me? That's so fucking rich!" Whirl's spark was beating out of his chest, "Well, good news! You're the fucking leak now. You're a goddamn council member! You know _everything_! _Get_ out of here and do something that _matters_!" 

"There's no way out of here, not now that you've killed Four," Nine breathed, and then ducked when Whirl raised the ion blaster and blew a hole through the wall behind him like it was a wet paper bag. The red emergency lights came on and the alarms began shrieking.

"The shuttle port is on the other side of that room. Get out," Whirl threw him the blaster. Behind him, a figure moved in front of the doorway, casting a shadow over his back. "I'll buy you some time." 

Nine stared at him a moment more. "Goodbye, Whirl," he said, finally, and then clambered through the hole in the wall.

Whirl turned around. 

"Get out of the way, Whirl," growled Star Saber, dangerously. 

"You know, for a religious fella," Whirl said, rolling his shoulders, cracking joints as he stretched, "I think Primus would really hate you."

Star Saber roared as he charged, thrusting forward with the famous Great Sword he had taken from Dai Atlus so long ago toward his gut. Whirl was lighter on his pedes though, and the cramped room made sword-swinging cumbersome and unwieldy. 

"God, _none_ of you suspected me!" Whirl laughed, "You all really thought there was nothing in here, huh? Y'all really thought?"

"Be quiet," Star Saber snapped, swinging again. Whirl leapt back and out of the way, using the opening to jab in a punch at his opponent's neck.

"No, no, I don't think I will! I think I've been quiet long enough!" Whirl dove sideways, escaping another downward strike that only cut superficially into his thigh, "I think maybe it's time I said something! The world we live in deserves better than this, than you, than us. There's good people down there, real people, people whose lives we've spent ours _ruining_!"

"It is the will of _Primus_ ," Star Saber yelled, throwing his sword into the wall now that it was obvious it wasn't going to work in the small quarters, "We were made _better_ than them."

Star Saber lunged for him and this time Whirl didn't dodge, surging forward to meet him shoulder first. The two mechs slammed into each other with the force of a hurricane, metal shrieking, and Whirl grabbed for Star Saber's throat while Star Saber punched at Whirl's gut.

Ultimately Whirl lost his grip when he doubled over, but rallied, using his suddenly lower center of gravity to slam into his opponent and knock them both over, tumbling backward. 

"No one is better than anyone else!" Whirl screamed at him, slamming a fist into his face, "There's no God given right to greatness! It's all a lie and it always has been! The rules are made up, as if anyone decided what someone was _supposed_ to be before they was even forged. I'm a helicopter and I'm a fucking _watchmaker_!" Star Saber kicked him hard enough that it knocked Whirl off and back onto the floor. Whirl took a potshot at him with energon rounds from his chest mounted artillery, ducked to avoid the blowback even as the room filled with smoke. 

"I'm saying this to the camera, to everyone on the ground," Whirl scrambled to his pedes, chest heaving, " _Fight back_! Resist, resist, resist, _live_ resisting, _die_ resisting, don't spend so much time surviving you never get to live. It doesn't matter what you turn into, you are _valuable_ , you _matter_ , _you_ can change _everything_. It doesn't matter if you're a council member, a bodyguard, a watchmaker, or- or a _janitor_ ," Whirl's voice broke. "You matter more than anything else to someone." 

Star Saber's sword flew from the smoke and lodged itself in his chest. 

The world exploded, white hot and screaming, and Whirl gasped for cool air, systems going haywire, rotors clicking on and casting the smoke away again. He looked up blearily as Star Saber stood straight up again, folding his hands into fists.

"That's enough, emp," he growled, "You're done." 

Whirl panted, then hardened, reached forward and grasped Dai Atlus's Great Sword from his chest by the handle and yanked it out again, clutching it in his trembling claws. 

For the first time in centuries, the handle lit.

"What-" Star Saber hissed, taken aback, "You're an _atheist_ -"

"I have _faith_ ," Whirl rasped through heaving shaky invents, "in _people_."

"Heretic," Star Saber growled, and came at him again.

Whirl swung as Star Saber lunged at him and missed, the blow striking him in the helm hard enough to shatter his optic, but he could still see, just barely through the fractalline glass, through the mist of pain, and while Star Saber was turned, fist connected to his head and stance open, Whirl thrust the blade upward and directly into his opponent's face with a shriek of rage. 

Star Saber didn't make a sound. Just flickered, greyed, and collapsed. 

Whirl dropped the handle of the blade, unable to pull it back out of its new home, and clutched at his chest, weeping energon as his knees buckled and brought him to the ground. Through the split in his plating he could see the glow of his spark, pale blue and far too bright.

"Tailgate?" he coughed, turning blindly back toward the camera, wondering if he was watching, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." 

"You should be," Six's callous voice sneered from the doorway. Whirl struggled back to his feet, wavering like a breeze could blow him over at any given moment. 

"Bye bye Birdy," Whirl mumbled absently, "You're too late. He's out by now." 

"Oh, certainly," said Six, as the security team lined up behind him, and one handed him a blaster, casually, like a cube of energon, "You aren't." 

"You can't kill me," Whirl laughed, a little deliriously, "I've been dead for centuries."

"Don't be so dramatic," Six spat. He raised the blaster, aimed it directly at Whirl's fractured optic. "Any last words?" 

Whirl turned back towards the camera. "Give 'em hell, legs. I love you."

Six pulled the trigger.

Three hundred miles away, beneath the surface of the planet, a blind minibot janitor started screaming.


	10. Epilogue | Tenth Circle: Love

Tailgate trailed one hand along the wall as he passed through the hall, the grooves a well-memorized length. The corridor was all hustle and bustle, mechs rushing this way and that to get to wherever they where needed. Things never slowed down in Adaptica.

"Commander Tailgate!" said a familiar voice, and Tailgate tilted his helm back. 

"Hey, Howlback," Tailgate answered, pausing, "What's up?" 

"You are running behind," Howlback informed him, the catformer's claws clicking against the floor as she approached. Tailgate knew she usually was silent when she walked, but made an effort to make noise around him, which he appreciated, "I came to find you, and ask if you wanted help."

"Mm…" Tailgate hummed in thought, and then tapped his hand against the wall, dropping it to his side, "Yes, that would be nice. Thank you." He reached out and she butted into his hand, and he grabbed her shoulder, heaving himself into her back. 

"Where's your lantern?" she asked.

"I already gave it to Anode."

"Oh, good," she was quiet again while she walked, until Tailgate heard the front doors of the complex open and he knew they were outside. They passed through stalls, the smell of cesium boiling and beryllium frying floated around him, tempting and indulgent. 

"Adaptica is getting crowded," Tailgate commented, "I suppose that's a good thing."

"The more refugees, the better, yes?" Howlback responded, "Can you imagine a future where we outnumber them?" 

"Maybe they'll recall every alt-mode but their own," he chuckled, "wouldn't that be fun?"

"Do not put it past them," she mumbled, "Excuse me! Pardon me- no, I- I am trying to reach the backstage, please. Thank you."

"Ah, are we there already?" he asked, sitting up straight. 

"Stairs," she said, and he tightened his grip with his legs just before she bounded up the steps, "Yes. You may get down now." 

"Thank you for the ride," he said, sliding down off her back and onto the ground.

"Hey, Teeg!" Anode called to him, and he could _hear_ her wings flapping, "You're late." 

"Some of us are literally blind," he reminded her, setting his hands on his hips, "You could have started without me."

"I'd have a riot on my hands if I tried."

"People don't like my speech _that_ much," he snorted, "Where's my lantern?" 

"Here," she said, handing him the lantern he'd made, "No, they'd be just as happy if you just quoted Whirl a few times and said nothing else. But it still has to be you. Come on."

Tailgate ran his hands across the breadth of the lantern, rememorizing its shape. He couldn't see it, but he knew it was blue- he'd driven Anode near mad describing the paper colours so he could pick the right one. He sighed and ran his thumb over the engraving he'd carved into the wire frame. _Birdy._

He followed her out past the curtain onto the stage and heard the din of the crowd begin to hush as he did. 

"Good evening, fellow rebel scum!" Anode spoke, her voice carrying over the speakers so it could be heard by everyone who had come, and a titter of laughter passed between them, "Every year, my spark is filled with joy to see so many new faces at the Festival of Lost Light, so many saved from the crushing fist of Functionist Rule. At the same time, it is broken, to see so many lanterns held by those new faces. We have all known too much suffering. We have all loved and lost.

"This week we have celebrated our dead by remembering their lives, as we hope ours will be remembered and celebrated in turn. Tonight, however, we indulge in our own grief, and we mourn."

Tailgate twitched when she laid a hand on his shoulder. "This year is the fiftieth since Adaptica was founded, the fiftieth since Nine-of-Twelve renounced the Council and joined our number. Without the sacrifice of Whirl of Polyhex, we would not be here today. His Conjunx Endura has prepared a few words."

It was a lie, one that hurt every time it was told. They had missed the first step, never spoken about it, never had the chance. It wasn't real. But when someone's last words on international television are "I love you," people have a tendency to assume, and he grew weary and heartbroken of explaining how they weren't, how they might have been, but they weren't. He hoped Whirl wouldn't mind.

Tailgate connected to the speaker system and stepped forward, lantern held against his chest, over his spark. 

"Every year I try to say something," he began, "But I always start by thinking how shocked Whirl would be that so many people cared. He spent so much of his life regretting his choices, trying to make amends for the mistakes he had made. He died believing that it was the only way to find absolution, that he didn't deserve to keep living. He was wrong.

"Whirl had a difficult life, and made a lot of difficult decisions. At the end of his days he found himself regretting most of them, and more than anything, he wanted to offset the harm he had done. He wanted to do something good in the world. If he had lived longer, he could have done more good. I believe that. It was one of the last things he said- 'don't spend so much time surviving you never get to live. It doesn't matter what you turn into, you are valuable, you matter, you can change everything. It doesn't matter if you're a council member, a bodyguard, a watchmaker, or a janitor. You matter more than anything else to someone.'

"He's not here today," Tailgate said gently, "He doesn't know the impact he had. He's never seen the graffiti of his face on the Senate floor. He's never heard a riot chat 'no God given right to greatness.' As far as he knew, he died despised. Don't underestimate the impact you can have on the world and people around you. There's always a chance to change, to do and be better than you thought you could."

Tailgate touched his opaque black visor, pausing to recycle a vent, "You're worth more than your use. We all are. We can't let the Functionist Council take our world from us and convince each other that we are our own enemies. We're all Cybertronians, we're all on the same planet, born from the same sentio metallica as everyone else. We have to take care of each other. We're all we've got."

He sighed and shifted position, holding the lantern out and flipping open a match to light the copper chloride wick at the center of his lantern. "We won't give up, until everyone is free, to choose how they live, and how they die. In his last words, ' _give 'em hell_.'"

The crowd gave a cheer that quickly morphed into the haunting, atonal chorus of the Hymn for the Missing, always sung when the lanterns went up. He pressed a gentle mask kiss to the side of his lantern, and disconnected from the speaker system.

"Bye bye, Birdy," he whispered, "I miss you." 

Tailgate released the lantern, and let it ride gently into the sky. He couldn't see it, nor could he see the thousands of other lanterns the joined it, a rainbow of lights that blotted out the stars and drifted into the distance, but he knew it was there. 

He took a deep breath, and then joined the rest of his people in singing their mourning song. 

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End file.
